


In the Moment

by Asphodelia



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Final Fantasy VII Remake Spoilers, Final Fantasy VII Spoilers, In case you've only played the remake, M/M, Rare Pairings, What's your point?, yeah they've never met in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24004273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodelia/pseuds/Asphodelia
Summary: They met in a janitorial supply closet in General Affairs. Reeve was running on fumes and the thinning hope that if he just worked harder the world would start making sense again. He just needed a moment - only a moment - to breath and think. Biggs didn't have the time or patience for that - he was there to find Wedge.In the moment, Reeve decided to help him.He wasn't a collaborator, though. It was a one-time thing because he didn't want to turn him in for torture. There was no reason to continue the association.Biggs has other ideas.
Relationships: Reeve Tuesti/Biggs
Comments: 45
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

He didn’t even look mildly worried. Biggs had a gun pointed at the man’s head and the damn suit couldn’t even be bothered to be afraid. He just looked… tired. Maybe mildly annoyed, like this was just one more thing he had to deal with. 

It pissed Biggs off. 

Tuesti was one of the top executives at Shinra – ran his own department, even. He was one of the most powerful men in the city, no doubt had everything he wanted, and he had the nerve to treat this as some kind of minor inconvenience. Like Biggs breaking into this place and risking discovery and death every time he turned a corner, trying to save his best friend from whatever horrible tortures the Turks were putting him through (if he was even still alive), was just another dissatisfying Wednesday morning in the life of Director Reeve Tuesti. 

“You should take this seriously, ‘Director’. I promise you I am.” Biggs seethed under his breath, conscious that they were in a storage room off a hallway filled with offices. He didn’t have quite the same reserves of rage built up that Barret did, but he definitely had enough to spare for Shinra’s top brass. “Where’s Wedge?”

“I apologize.” The director sighed deeply and threaded a hand through his own dark hair. “I’m taking this seriously. There’s just a lot to consider, I need a moment.” 

“You don’t know where he is.” Biggs realized the executive was probably just biding time until someone came to rescue him. “You probably don’t even know who I’m talking about. Someone like you doesn’t get his hands dirty with the day to day carnage of the Shinra machine. We’re just ants and you’re one of the guys telling people like the Turks where to step.” 

Tuesti’s frown deepened and pain flashed in his eyes. Biggs felt a ridiculous stab of pity – this wasn’t some low-ranking public security officer afraid for his life, this was one of the people actively killing the planet – and hated that he couldn’t even enjoy this. He had one of Shinra’s top guys at the end of a gun and it wasn’t satisfying, it was just more violence. 

“Turn around. We’ll find someone with more answers.” He needed to hurry up and find Wedge. All Tuesti had to do was yell and he’d be caught. Biggs wasn’t sure he could knock him out before he alerted anyone, and he found he didn’t have it in him to execute the man. Maybe if he could somehow disguise having a gun to his back he could use his hostage to get farther into the building and ask around about Wedge. 

Tuesti wasn’t turning. Biggs was annoyed all over again and about to _make him_ when the director calmly raised a hand to stop him.

“Wait, I believe I do know where your friend is. Is he a bit heavier? Red bandanna?” 

“Yes!” Biggs didn’t know why the suit was suddenly volunteering information, and for the moment he didn’t care. Wedge was alive! Right? “He’s alive?”

“Yes, he’s alive.” The corners of Tuesti’s mouth turned up in a small, gentle, smile like he was happy to be able to deliver that news. Biggs grinned wide and didn’t care who he was sharing the moment with. Wedge was alive. 

“I can take you to him, but you’ll have to trust me. Can you do that?”

-

Reeve had needed a moment to himself. Just a moment. He’d barely slept since the Sector 7 plate fell – since they’d made it fall. How could he? Even if there hadn’t been mountains of work to do. He’d been working round the clock to find some way to get relief resources to Sector 7. Rufus Shinra was not as solidly against the idea as his father had been, although he wasn’t jumping to help either. He’d gotten a ‘maybe’ and it was clear Reeve would have to come up with an impressive plan with clear benefits to the company if he wanted Rufus to budge. Still, there was a chance now, and Reeve wasn’t going to blow it. 

He was even going to be starting some extra work with the Turks soon to make himself more valuable to the new president. He didn’t know yet if Rufus was the type to play favourites between the departments, like his father had been, but if he was then Reeve wasn’t going to pretend he was above playing that game. Not anymore. 

That’s what brought him to General Affairs that morning. He’d brought down his Cait Sith – the little robot he’d built as a passion project some time ago – and handed it over to Tseng. The Turks would plant it somewhere for the terrorists who’d fled the city to find, and then Reeve would interface with it to spy on that group from the inside. Having been active for a while already, Cait Sith’s onboard a.i had developed its own personality and would be capable of operating autonomously while Reeve wasn’t actively puppeting him. Reeve was worried about the little cat, but confident he would be able to play his part. He’d also handed over a newer model he’d built, but never activated, just in case…but Reeve didn’t want to think about that. Cait Sith was precious to him.

Beyond hopefully getting on Rufus’s good side, though, the spy mission would be a way to keep himself apprised of the larger situation. The more information he had, the more options he would have. Maybe he’d be able to find some way to help Midgar out there in the world.

So, he had piles of his ‘normal’ work, extra work as a spy, and he was also trying to decide what to do with some information he’d stumbled onto regarding Avalanche collaborators at Shinra. It had been 4am, hours after President Shinra was murdered. Reeve couldn’t honestly say he mourned the man, but he hadn’t been able to speak to Rufus about getting aid to Sector 7 yet and he couldn’t find it in him to go home and sleep so he’d been ‘investigating’ to keep himself busy and had found flaws in security recordings. Tracing them to Mayor Domino hadn’t been hard. Uncovering anyone else the mayor was working with also probably wouldn’t be hard. 

Reeve had covered Domino's tracks a bit better before anyone else could make the same discovery.

Reeve should turn it all over to the Turks or report it to the new president to win his favor, especially considering one of the terrorists was _still in the building_. Remotely activating the cameras in Domino’s office – which the mayor had been allowed to think he’d deactivated years ago – wasn’t hard and after discovering what he’d done Reeve had wanted to make sure there wasn’t some kind of dangerous operation being run out of there. There wasn’t. It was just the mayor and his books, and one man who looked like one of the terrorists on that overplayed clip of Avalanche breaking into Reactor 1. 

Reeve should have reported all of this, but he didn’t. Yet. Maybe he would, but not yet. For now he wanted to sit on information, keep all the cards to himself. Avalanche were the terrorists that had destroyed two mako reactors (somehow – Reeve still didn’t understand how they’d have the resources to put together that powerful an explosive), but Shinra had destroyed Sector 7. Sector 7, where the employee housing district was located. 

There were no ‘good guys’ here. He had to work with what he had, and that was Shinra… but maybe keeping an enemy on the board, in the form of these collaborators and the remaining scraps of Avalanche in the city, was for the best for now. Just in case. 

Managing all of it on almost no sleep and far too little coffee was… a lot. And so, after dropping Cait off with Tseng, he’d needed a moment. Just a moment of quiet, with nobody else around, where he could shut his eyes and breath. He’d ducked into a storage room and found a gun pointed in his face. 

“Not a word.” 

The stranger was wearing the ragged earth tones and makeshift combat gear of someone who fought off monsters in the slums. Or bombed mako reactors. It was strange, how Avalanche seemed to be a uniformed military force and a rag-tag troupe of misfits simultaneously. Maybe something to look into.

Some time when there wasn’t a gun in his face.

The possible-terrorist gestured for Reeve to move away from the door, probably fearing he’d open it suddenly and expose them if he was able to reach the handle. Reeve complied, moving a few steps to the side. He thought he should probably be terrified – and he was. It was just that the fear felt distant and he was currently numb to it. He was aware that that was not a good sign for his overall mental and emotional health, but at least it meant he wasn’t panicking. 

“Holy shit, you’re not just any suit, are you? I’ve seen you on tv. Tuesti, right?”

Reeve nodded. “Director Reeve Tuesti of Urban Development. And may I ask your name? I don’t believe we’ve met.” 

The question was asked mostly on autopilot, Reeve’s manners kicking in somewhat inappropriately. The man’s face darkened and it seemed like he thought he was being mocked. 

“You should take this seriously, ‘Director’. I promise you I am. Where’s Wedge?”

Reeve realised there was a good chance he was talking about the man Domino was harbouring in his office. The man Reeve hadn’t decided yet whether he was telling the others on the board about. 

He’d considered letting the collaborators continue operations in order to keep all possibilities open, but he had never considered involving himself with them beyond that or even letting them know he was aware of them. It seemed like this wouldn’t be information he could simply sit on, though. He had to either find a way to call for help, or…

Was there even an ‘or’?

Reeve sighed and ran a hand through his hair, wishing he could have had that quiet moment he’d ducked in here for. “I apologize. I’m taking this seriously. There’s just a lot to consider, I need a moment.” 

The man continued to misinterpret his exhaustion as stalling or a lack of urgency and became somehow angrier.

“You don’t know where he is. You probably don’t even know who I’m talking about. Someone like you doesn’t get his hands dirty with the day to day carnage of the Shinra machine. We’re just ants and you’re one of the guys telling people like the Turks where to step.” 

Crushed like ants…

Reeve remembered watching through Cait’s eyes as the plate collapsed, unable to stop his mind from estimating the body count. Unable to fight off the all-consuming helplessness he’d thought he’d been fighting by trying to go in as Cait and… what? It was unlike him not to plan, but he’d had to do something. Anything. It hadn’t mattered, and it hadn’t even been his real failure. President Shinra hadn’t been a good man, but prior to that day Reeve hadn’t thought him totally unreasonable. There must have been a way to change his mind, a point Reeve could have made that would have made him reconsider…

There was no time for this kind of reflection now.

The terrorist had decided Reeve didn’t have the information he wanted and that they should find someone who did. It sounded like he was planning on taking Reeve hostage and using him to move around the building. That wouldn’t work. They weren’t two minutes away from Tseng’s office. Draping a jacket over the hand holding the gun wasn’t going to fool even the greenest Turk, and this was the corner of Shinra HQ they were all based in. If they left the room with him as a hostage, the man would probably be caught quickly. 

Reeve should just go along with it. Except… He just wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to decide anything yet. He didn’t know yet what he’d need later and he wanted to keep all the pieces on the board for now. But he had to make a decision… Helping the man holding a gun on him seemed ridiculous, on one hand, but Avalanche was in no state to be bombing any more reactors right now and the thought of there being no opposition to Shinra in Midgar at all was daunting for some reason. Reeve wasn’t letting go of the idea of building a better future for Midgar from within Shinra, but knowing what the company was capable of he would just also feel better knowing their influence wasn’t total. And that’s what would happen, if this man were captured. He’d be questioned and made to give up all his associates. 

“Wait, I believe I do know where your friend is. Is he a bit heavier? Red bandanna?” 

Reeve hadn’t decided yet whether he was going to help the stranger reunite with his friend or not. He just needed a few more moments to think it over. 

And then the man smiled. It was only a small smile, but it contained all the hope Reeve had felt drain from the world over the last week or so. He also lowered the gun, although Reeve was fairly sure he hadn’t noticed himself doing that. He was clearly from the 'rag-tag' portion of Avalanche, not really a 'professional'.

“Yes! He’s alive?”

Suddenly, the man before him wasn’t just a terrorist and potential complication to be kept on some kind of chess board. He was a person who had risked a great deal – everything – come here and rescue a friend he’d thought might already be dead. He was brave, loyal, and acting with a level of conviction Reeve didn’t think he was capable of himself. 

“Yes, he’s alive.” On a human level, Reeve was happy to be able to tell him his friend was okay. Nobody was getting that kind of good news lately. A bright, blinding, grin broke out across the stranger’s face.

“I can take you to him, but you’ll have to trust me. Can you do that?”

In the end it wasn’t a strategic decision to keep Avalanche ‘on the board’ in Midgar. It was just impossible to consider turning the man over for torture and death when he was smiling so brightly and looking so human and hopeful. Reeve couldn’t crush that. There’d already been so much death. 

The stranger’s smile faded then and he raised the gun back up a bit. He looked hard at Reeve for a moment, seeming to search his eyes for something. He either found it, or he realized he didn’t have many options. The gun was lowered completely. 

“Alright.” He didn’t sound happy about his choice. 

Reeve should really look into what kind of emotional issues made you grateful when someone who had threatened your life decided to give you a chance. When he had time. Eventually. 

Right now he had to reunite some enemies of the company and find a way to smuggle them out of the building so he could get back to work. Maybe some time between hiding this one act of betrayal from Rufus, drafting his proposal, and part-timing as Cait he’d find that moment to breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this probably seems like a random pairing. I want to explore Reeve during this period where he knows Shinra is bad news in a lot of ways, but has still chosen to stay there. I need someone to poke at his reasoning and challenge his choices, and since the remake has spared Biggs he seems like a good fit. I also just loved Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie in the remake and wanted to spend some more time in Midgar with that part of Avalanche (although we won't be seeing much of Jessie. She's alive in this fic, but... you'll see).


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up in Leaf House had been surreal. Biggs had thought he was a goner and when he woke up to a bright, warm, room in a place he’d loved and left behind there was a moment where he wondered if this was what it was like to return to the planet. Then a cat had jumped up onto his chest and meowed loudly in his face. Biggs wasn’t as big a lover of cats as Wedge was, but it wasn’t impossible that his idea of heaven would include them either. If not for the kitty breath. 

Biggs had stared down the little creature – which wasted no time in making itself comfortable – until it had poked him in the nose with its paw and he realized that he _knew_ this cat. Not that there weren’t shorthaired calico’s in the world that didn’t belong to his friend, but this was definitely Smalls. 

“Hey buddy, what’re you doing here?” Biggs reached out to pet the cat and it hopped off him immediately, shooting him a mildly offended look before running off downstairs. Yep, definitely Smalls. Biggums was aggressive with strangers and a total sap with humans he considered his (most of Avalanche). Reggie was standoffish with everyone except Wedge. Smalls was the one that wanted to make sure he had your attention constantly, but would hardly ever let you pet him. 

Biggs had found he was sore when he moved, but that getting up wasn’t impossible. He fumbled his way down the stairs to find Smalls now demanding attention from Folia, winding around her legs and then retreating a few steps back when she looked like she might bend down to touch him. “He doesn’t want to be petted, he just wants you to want to pet him. Or give him food.”

“Well, you’re a funny little guy aren’t you?” Folia laughed down at the cat, who meowed sharply and stalked off flicking his tail. 

Folia shook her head before smiling warmly at Biggs. “It’s good to see you awake. We were all so worried after the plate came down, finding you at all was a miracle and then when the doctor said you should be alright?” Folia wiped away a tear that hadn’t fallen yet. “We couldn’t believe how lucky we were. We thought you were never coming home.” 

There was nothing to do then but hug his old friend. Biggs had joined Avalanche to make a better world for the kids he’d used to teach – kids growing up in the Leaf House without their original families, relying on the kindness of the community to get by, just like he had – but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel guilty sometimes about leaving and making this first adopted family worry about him. Folia had grown up here with him and he hadn’t even managed to speak to her for about a year. 

“The plate came down then?” Biggs asked over Folia’s shoulder while still hugging her tight. He’d known the odds were against them, but as he drifted off up on that tower he’d tried to tell himself the others would manage to stop it. He also had no idea how he could be alive if the plate had collapsed. “Did everyone…”

“Everyone?”

“Sorry, I guess I didn’t tell you much about my friends.” It wasn’t safe to let outsiders know who all their members were. “I just saw Wedge’s cat, so –“

“Oh, yes, sorry. There was… fewer people made it out than did.” Raw anger shot through Biggs and he stepped away from Folia when he realized he’d started squeezing her a bit tightly. 

“But a lot of people _did_ make it out, and the way the pillar fell it actually shielded some of you from the worst of it.” Folia tried to assure him. “That’s how you and your friend Jessie made it.” Biggs breathed a sigh of relief for Jessie, and for Wedge since he was assuming based on the presence of his cat that he must be around somewhere and have told Folia about Jessie… not that Biggs had told her about him either. 

Biggs decided he’d wait to stew over how _evil_ Shinra was for now. Right now he just really wanted to see his friends. “Where are they? Do you know if any of my other friends made it out?”

“It seems Aerith – Elmyra’s girl, do you remember her?” Biggs knew Elmyra because she used to bring food to the Leaf House kids, and he did remember her daughter although he’d never known her that well. “Well, she somehow became friends with a mercenary named Cloud, who knows your friends Barret and Tifa. Aerith brought Marlene to Elmyra after the collapse, and the others brought Wedge after they found him.” 

That was everyone. Barret and his daughter were alright. Jessie and Wedge were alright. Tifa and Cloud were alright. How had they gotten so lucky? Shinra set out to kill them and they’d missed on every count. 

“I should tell you…” Folia looked apologetic, and Biggs realized this was it. They hadn’t really gotten off scot free. The other shoe was dropping. “Some of your friends had to leave town – chased out by Shinra after they broke into their offices. Marlene is still with Elmyra, but most of the others are gone.”

That was fine, as long as they were alive. Biggs knew Barret – he’d be back for Marlene, and for the cause. 

“Most?”

Folia looked fully sad now. “Your friend Jessie… She’s also at Elmyra’s house. A search party found her not long after they found you and Wedge asked Elmyra if she could stay. She’s alive, but she’s not… but the doctor can’t say for sure if she’ll ever wake up.” 

Biggs had rushed to the house up the lane, needing to see Jessie’s state for himself. He ended up wishing he had walked slower, put it off for just a while longer. Jessie had always been such a vibrant, lively, person. It was strange to see her so still. 

Jessie’s parents had almost definitely died in the collapse. It would have been strange for her mom to be out at that hour, and her dad…

If Jessie’s theory was right, and her dad had been caught between life and returning to the planet, then was that where Jessie was now? Had she gotten to see her dad before he’d had to move on?

After sitting with Jessie for a while, Biggs had thanked Elmyra for looking after her and promised he’d be by to help out however he could to repay her. He’d also gotten to see Marlene, which was a big relief even though he’d already been told she was alright. Maybe it was the way she smiled and hugged his legs and said she was _sure_ her daddy and all their friends were okay. It made it so easy to just ruffle her hair and indulge in that same childlike optimism.

The little girl ducked, giggling, away from his hand. “Daddy says it’s his job to protect everyone – the whole planet! So I’m sure they’re all okay. And I’ve been helping take care of Jessie too!” 

At this point, Biggs had thought Wedge had left town with Barret and his group. His plan had been to lay low at the Leaf House for a while, recover, and see if he could connect with other Avalanche cells after a bit of time had passed. It would be a nice change to be back at the Leaf House for a while, though. Spending time with the kids and getting back to teaching would do him some good. He’d had dinner with Elmyra and Marlene (and Smalls, who Elmyra had put out a bowl for even though Biggs was about 80% sure he’d seen a cat dish back at the Leaf House too) that night, though, and Elmyra had a television. 

They’d put the news on because it was important to Elmyra to hear if there were any updates about the escaped terrorists – her daughter was considered one of them now – and Biggs was obviously pretty interested too. They agreed silently that Marlene shouldn’t watch, just in case, and so Biggs lingered an hour or so after dinner until she’d started to get sleepy and Elmyra had put her to bed upstairs. 

There hadn’t been any real updates on the news, but there was a loop of continued coverage of the events from earlier in the week – the collapse, the ‘terrorists’ Shinra was putting the blame on, and their status as ‘at large, having fled from the city’. The ‘terrorists’ were shown on security footage of their escape. Wedge was not with them. 

If Wedge went into the Shinra building, but he didn’t escape with the others, then that meant he was still there. Captured. That or he was dead.

Biggs knew what he had to do. He had to get into the Shinra building and save Wedge. It didn’t matter that there was a good chance Wedge was already dead, or that Biggs wasn’t exactly at 100% right now, or that it would be extremely easy for this to end with him captured to. Barret, Jessie, Tifa, Wedge, and him were a team. A family, even. He’d never leave any of them behind, especially not knowing what they were probably doing to Wedge right that moment. And he was the only one there to help. 

Elmyra told him that HQ had helicopters and that’s how they and Wedge had gotten up onto the plate, since the train wasn’t running to the slums right now and the tunnel was sealed off. They’d left a grappling gun, though – for him, in case he’d woken up while the operation at the Shinra building was still on and wanted in – and so he’d had his way up. 

He’d spent the night climbing, the early morning navigating up through air ducts (whatever wounds had been bandaged on his torso did not appreciate that) towards where an old map indicated General Affairs should be, and finally he’d risked coming out into a janitorial closet which was where he’d met Reeve Tuesti – a big-time Shinra suit who had promised to help him find Wedge if he’d just trust him. 

And for some reason Biggs had.

That was about an hour and a half ago. Tuesti had left and said he’d be back. Biggs knew that if the executive was going to turn him in he could have done it the second he was out the door, so the passing time probably didn’t mean anything bad. 

Unless the suit was just sadistic enough to make him wait before turning him over to the Turks. 

Biggs hadn’t seen any malice in the man’s eyes, though. When he’d really looked he’d thought the man seemed strained, sad, and somehow… gentle. 

Now that he wasn’t there it was a lot easier to think he was some kind of sadist, though. Especially since every minute that passed was a chance for someone else to open that door, and there wasn’t really anywhere to hide. He couldn’t even climb back into the vent without making a bunch of noise (he had tried). 

When the door finally opened and Tuesti slipped back inside Biggs let out a big relieved breath and slumped back against a wall. 

“Sorry, my office isn’t really near General Affairs and I was stopped by a few people.” Tuesti smiled apologetically as he set down a briefcase he’d carried in and pulled something out of it to hand to Biggs. 

“Well, you’re helping me, so I really can’t complain.” The passing time had been making him irritable, but it was hard to hold onto that or the general distain he had for Shinra executives when one was acting all friendly and offering to reunite him with Wedge. For some reason. Biggs really shouldn’t be trusting all this just because he couldn’t think of what the man’s angle could be. “Why are you helping me, anyways?”

Biggs didn’t take the thing Tuesti was trying to hand him, and so Tuesti withdrew his hand and spent a moment looking down at it. Looking at it himself Biggs realized it was a suit jacket. Tuesti smoothed out the fabric with his other hand for a quiet moment.

“It’s been an awful week, hasn’t it? I guess you probably don’t think I have a right to say that.” Tuesti sighed and shook his head before offering the jacket to Biggs again. “That’s it, though. There’s been so much bad already and I don’t see how turning you in for execution does anything but add to it. There’s already been more than enough death.” 

On one hand, Tuesti was right. He was an executive at the company that had _made_ everything awful, he didn’t get to complain about how bad things were. On the other hand, Biggs was inclined to believe he meant what he said.

Biggs took the jacket. 

“So your plan is to dress me up like some kind of… accountant… and just walk out of here?”

“A lot of people work here. Nobody knows everybody. As long as you fit in most people won’t even see you.” The corners of Tuesti’s mouth curved up for just a second in amusement. “Also, you look more marketing than accounting.”

Biggs didn’t know what to do with this strange board member from the most evil company in the world being sad and nice and making jokes, so he just got changed. Tuesti had brought him a suit jacket and pants, a dress shirt, shiny shoes, and a tie. 

Tying a tie was not a skill Biggs had ever needed in his life. He fumbled with it for a while before Tuesti stepped forwards slightly, looking at Biggs questioningly. He was offering to help. Biggs honestly just didn’t like the thought of a Shinra suit getting that close to him, even if this one was in a bizarrely friendly mood today, so he shook his head. And continued fumbling. 

Tuesti sighed and reached for his own neck. Thinking he was going to maybe show him how his was tied, Biggs watched with interest as the director’s tie suddenly snapped off. 

It was a clip-on. 

Biggs blinked. And then he laughed, once, surprised. 

“I’m always taking it off and on, it’s just easier.” Tuesti defended as he offered Biggs the clip-on tie. 

Biggs felt strange for a moment about accepting and wearing a tie that belonged to the other man, before he remembered that everything he was wearing probably belonged to Tuesti and took it. He gave him the real tie he’d been struggling with and Tuesti had it tied expertly in seconds. 

He put his own clothes, gun, and red headband into the briefcase and then they were ready to go. 

Walking through the halls of the Shinra building was strange. There were so many people, all of them busy and bustling and utterly normal. Not that Biggs had expected all of the hundreds of office workers in the Shinra building to be villains of some kind, but watching them go about their deceptively benign jobs was still just… strange. 

Biggs caught sight of himself in a glass door and decided he couldn’t wait to be back in his own clothes. 

-

The terrorist looked good in the suit. And also like he thought it was going to eat him. If they’d been friends Reeve would have teased him about it. 

How long had it been since Reeve had had friends?

Reeve led them to an elevator, which they rode in silence for a while before it stopped and a third man got on. Palmer brightened in a desperate way upon seeing Reeve and seemed to barely notice the other man in the elevator with them. 

Generally, Palmer had no desire to associate with Reeve at all. He didn’t really mock him the way Scarlet or Heidigger did when they thought he was being weak, but he’d chortle along. Reeve didn’t go out of his way to avoid Palmer like he would Hojo, but he didn’t seek him out either. They were not friends. But for the last couple days, Palmer seemed to have forgotten that. He was afraid of what might change under the new president, and of the specter of the dead war hero he’d seen roaming the halls. He was looking for some kind of stability or reassurance, and Reeve supposed the others were all too intimidating to go to. 

Maybe Reeve should try to be scarier? Work on his maniacal laugh?

“Reeve! Good morning – or is it good afternoon already? You know I missed my mid-morning tea and now I’ve absolutely no sense of time.” Palmer laughed loudly. “I was hoping I would run into you, you know. It’s been too long since we’ve had lunch,” They’d never eaten lunch together. “and there’s been so much… I’d love to hear your views on some of the more recent happenings. Not that they’re anything we can’t handle –“

The terrorist snorted loudly, drawing Palmer’s attention. He clearly hadn’t meant to, judging by the look on his face. 

“Excuse me?” He played it like a sneeze and Palmer lost interest right as they arrived at their floor.

“This is me. Goodbye Palmer.” Reeve stepped out of the elevator and the man from Avalanche followed, but with enough sense to make it look like they both just happened to get off there. He followed Reeve at a safe distance until they made it to the library. 

“You’re a bit of an oddball, but Palmer is exactly what I expected.” 

“Predictability is his best trait.” Reeve nodded. “What did you expect me to be like?”

The other man didn’t answer, glaring instead at a library robot who’d rolled up beeping about how wonderful and explosive the mayor apparently was. 

“So why are we in a library? Is there a secret torture room in here, or are you telling me my friend has just been catching up on some reading while I’ve been thinking he’s dead?”

“The later.” Reeve smiled, still glad to be delivering some good news to someone. They were outside the mayor’s office soon enough. Reeve knocked. 

It took suspiciously long for the door to pop open and reveal the mayor at his desk, sitting in a way that was too practiced to be casual and holding a book upside down. 

“Ah, Director Tuesti, you should have called. I’d have put tea on. What can I do for you?“

Reeve hadn’t answered before the rebel was calling for his friend. 

“Wedge, you in here?”

The man had barely finished his sentence before the other member of his group – Wedge – was rocketing out through some strategically stacked books and squeezing him tightly. 

Reeve watched the reunion fondly before turning back to Domino, whose faux-pleasantness had melted into anxiety. “You need to cover your tracks better. You’re lucky it was me that found that footage.” 

The mayor looked chastised, and also infinitely relieved. “I had no idea you were sympathetic to –“

“I’m not. I just don’t like what’ll happen if I turn you, or those two, in. Bringing him here is all I plan to do.” Reeve turned his head again to watch the friends reuniting, two wrapped up in their excited chatter to pay much attention to Reeve or the mayor. 

“Well, you better also plan on getting them out of here or we’re all done for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably won't be able to keep updating this fast, this is a fluke. 
> 
> I was so excited to get comments that other people had been considering this pair! I'm glad it makes sense to other people. It'd be cool if more fics started springing up.


	3. Chapter 3

“Well, you better also plan on getting them out of here or we’re all done for.”

Domino had a point. 

Reeve had intended on bringing the man he’d found in the store room to his friend and then leaving them and Domino to their own devices, but of course he couldn’t actually do that. Domino was keeping the other man – Wedge – here for a reason. You could dress them in suit jackets and gamble that their faces wouldn’t get scanned in the lobby and maybe they’d make it out of the building, but once they were out in the city they’d have no way to leave the plate… right?

“How did you get up onto the plate? Can you use the same way to get back down?”

The two Avalanche members paused their reunion to look over at him and the one he was more familiar with answered, looking puzzled and slightly suspicious at the sudden question. “Grappling gun. So no, it won’t get us both down.”

So no, they had no way to leave the plate. You couldn’t move between sectors on top of the plate right now without having your ID scanned, either. Even if they made it out of the building they’d probably be picked up by public security. Helping them in the first place would have been pointless, and once they were questioned it’d all blow back on him. 

“You didn’t have a plan for getting back down?” Reeve frowned slightly. 

“I thought he was being tortured. There wasn’t any time to waste.”

“You didn’t have a plan for anything past bringing him here.” The mayor grinned smugly, leaning back in his chair and kicking at his desk oddly. It took Reeve a second to realize he’d probably been trying to put his feet up in some kind of power pose. The mayor didn't pause to acknowledge his own clumsiness. “Maybe you can still run to Heidigger and turn us all in. Tell him you only thought about helping the terrorists escape long enough to dress one up in your clothes. I’m sure he’ll understand.” 

Reeve wished again he’d been able to get that moment of quiet earlier. The dull headache he’d been nursing near constantly was starting to flare up again. “I’ll think of something. In theory it’s not like I don’t have the resources.” 

“Thanks!” Wedge spoke up, smiling brightly. “Hey, you’re one of the directors, right? Your logo is a heart.” 

“The logo is for the department, but yes.” The logos had been a branding initiative from just a couple years earlier and Reeve was positive Scarlet was responsible for his. He couldn’t prove it, but he knew. Joke was on her, of course – he thought his pink heart logo was lovely. 

“Wow, I was already surprised to find out the mayor was with us, I never thought –“

“I’m not.” Reeve corrected the second person in less than 10 minutes who’d thought he was a collaborator. 

“He just thinks your friend is cute. Or he’s bored, maybe.” Why did Reeve endorse Domino in the last election? Oh, right, because the entire board did and elections in Midgar were a sham. 

“But you think you can help us get back to the lower city?” The Avalanche member in Reeve’s spare suit jacket asked seriously, ignoring the mayor. 

“Yes. Off the top of my head, I could maybe say I want to survey the damage and head down in a chopper.” He actually wanted to do that anyways, but had ultimately decided against it because several people from his department had done just that and had already provided him with what he needed for his proposal (the first time). “I’ll need to think about it, though. It won’t be sooner than tomorrow afternoon in any case.” Tomorrow morning was when he had to present his relief plan to Rufus. 

“Okay then. I guess we’re laying low here for a while. At least there’s a lot to read.”

“Actually…” Now that Reeve was putting all the thought into this escapade that he should have from the beginning – his mind was somewhat occupied lately – he realized that walking the man disguised through the building had been much riskier than he’d initially estimated. If Reeve’s presentation went well and he was able to squeeze some funding out of Rufus then that funding would have to come from somewhere. The Urban Development budget wouldn’t cover it as it was now. Whoever’s department lost out might try to ‘strike back’ at him. His movements would be looked into. 

Two men entering a library and only one leaving, even after a whole day had passed, was fairly suspicious behaviour and there would be footage of it. The tapes couldn’t be altered without contradicting what Palmer had seen, which would make it obvious they’d been tampered with. And Palmer would jump at the chance to throw Reeve under the bus and prove his value to the new president. All he’d seen was Reeve get off the elevator at the same time as someone else, but he’d play it up like they’d seemed to be working together if Heidigger or Scarlet implied he was up to something. 

“Actually?” The man in his suit pressed.

“There’s footage of you coming in here that can’t be deleted since Palmer saw you. If anyone looks into my actions, and someone might, they’ll see that you never came out. It’s suspicious.” Reeve explained, and then hesitated before continuing. “You can wait the night out in my office.”

The man just looked at him for a moment, before his eyes softened. Like the suspicion that he’d been regarding Reeve with was drying up. “Being a director here isn’t going to help you if you get caught, is it?”

“No, it won’t.” Reeve smiled self-deprecatingly, internally laughing at himself for the spot he’d gotten himself into. As if there weren’t enough reasons to look over your shoulder around here. “Take the elevator down to the 54th floor in about half an hour. It’s better we don’t leave at the same time.” 

-

Biggs had been determined not to let his guard down around the Shinra executive even if it did seem like he was helping, but he couldn’t think of any reason Tuesti could be helping them now except for the sake of helping him. If he were playing them somehow it seemed like he’d at least pretend to support Avalanche, but he’d been pretty clear that he didn’t. And if he was helping even though he was against them, he must really just not want anyone else to die if he could prevent it. 

Biggs didn’t know what to make of that when he lined it up side by side with Tuesti’s job running the department responsible for powering the city by draining the planet. 

Still… “I guess I’m lucky he found me.” Biggs scratched his head, turning from the door Tuesti had left through and back to Wedge. 

“He seems nice, but… It seems like he still supports Shinra?” Wedge looked about as confused as Biggs was. “I mean, I guess a lot of Shinra folks are probably nice enough, but he’s one of their top guys.”

“He’s the one who designed the mako reactors.” The Mayor – and wow, Biggs was so happy to see Wedge alive and well he hadn’t even processed yet that Shinra’s puppet mayor was actually an Avalanche collaborator – leaned his elbows against his desk, frowning. “A lot of the higher ups here – hell, all of them – are vile. Not a stitch of empathy and plenty of sadism to go around. I’ve been watching everything closely enough to know that’s not Tuesti. Not by a long shot.” The mayor looked disappointed as he continued. Biggs got the feeling like he wished things were different. “But he’s not an ally, and he’s not even neutral. So there’s only one option left.” 

“Kind of hard to think of him as the enemy when he’s saving our asses.” 

“Maybe he’ll come around?” Wedge had been right about Cloud, eventually, but this was a very different situation. 

Mayor Domino started fumbling around in his desk for something and ended up pulling out two brand new looking PHS devices. “One of my operators down in R&D gave me some of these mobile comms with scrambler chips in them. It’s pretty near impossible to hack them or intercept calls. They can probably be broken into if they end up in the wrong hands, though, so my guys turn them into me for a wipe every few days. I’m going to give these to you after I wipe them, so we can stay in touch and you can get in contact with whatever other cells are left. I’ll add the numbers I know in.” 

Domino got to work on his data wipe, and Biggs took the opportunity to let Wedge know his cat seemed to be alright and was happily mooching off two different households. They kept the conversation light for the time being. Wedge had already asked earlier about Biggs’s injuries and Biggs had just said he was alright. He must be, since he’d climbed all the way up to the plate last night and hadn’t fallen apart. When he’d been changing earlier there had only been a little blood seeping through the bandages. It hurt, but it was nothing he couldn’t ignore while he’d thought his friend’s life was in danger. 

Biggs and Wedge kept on chatting until it was time for Biggs to head down and meet Tuesti. He made sure to thank the mayor before he left.

“Come next election, you’ve got my vote.”

“It doesn’t really matter.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Biggs didn’t like walking through the Shinra building any more now than he had earlier. When he got on the elevator it was crowded – everyone was returning from their lunch breaks – and there were two younger office workers giggling about the awful cologne someone in their department had started wearing. 

That morning, watching the Shinra employees going about their normal days had been strange, but had ultimately humanized them. Now it did the opposite. How could they just be going about their daily lives after what had happened – what Shinra had done? Biggs was glad to be off the elevator.

He was the only one to get off where he did, and the floor he was on looked pretty empty. Beyond the shiny floors surrounding the elevator area were glass walls, and behind them an open concept work area. There were probably about 50 work stations, and only about 5 of them were occupied. 

Tuesti was standing near the center of the room talking to a frowning red-haired woman. Biggs thought he probably shouldn’t interrupt, so he stood awkwardly by the elevators for a moment before Tuesti spotted him and nodded for him to come over. Even though the woman was still there…

She watched him curiously as he approached, and Biggs wasn’t sure if he should greet her or not. He’d thought it best to avoid talking to anyone he didn’t have to, but it felt strange for Tuesti to wave him into this interaction and expect him not to at least say hi. 

“Thank you for your help this week, but you can really go home now. I’ll manage.”

“But sir –“

“See, look, I’ve even got backup.” Tuesti smiled at Biggs as he approached, and Biggs managed to feel even more awkward about the whole thing. He actually found himself waving at her for a second before violently pulling his own hand down. 

“Hi, I’m, “ Oh, he was talking, _great_. “Bigg” Don’t use your real name, dumbass. “ums. Biggums. I’m from –“ Where had Tuesti said he looked like he was from again? The market?

“Biggums is shadowing me for the afternoon. He’ll be able to cover for you if something comes up.” Tuesti took pity on him. He did not seem at all worried about the degree to which the lady was Not Buying It. 

“This is a fairly sensitive time. I’m not sure having someone with no experience fill in is the best course.” She didn’t believe what she was hearing, that had to be obvious to all of them, but she was playing along anyways.

“Please, Leah. You’ve done enough. You’ve been excellent. And now I need you to go home and watch soap operas on the sofa with your dog. Have a nap. _Rest_.” 

“Is that what you’re going to do?” Her tone was nothing but professional but Biggs still got the feeling she was being sassy. It made Tuesti smile.

“Nope.” Tuesti popped the ‘p’ in a slightly cheeky manner. “But I’m your boss so do as I say, not as I do.”

Tuesti’s employee relented then, seeming more fond than anything else. It sounded like the other directors would turn on him the second it was even mildly convenient, but he apparently had the admiration of his subordinates. 

“My assistant. I’ve had to keep her late a few days in a row. She needs a break, but she thinks that if I’m working she should be working.” Tuesti explained as his assistant left, before turning and leading Biggs towards what must be his office. This minor victory seemed to have put him in a better mood because he was carrying himself much more comfortably than he had been before. “Please tell me your name is actually ‘Biggums’. It sounded like a lie, but I have hope.” 

Biggs snorted a laugh, more amused than embarrassed. “No. Just Biggs.” He already knew Wedge’s real name, and he doubted he was going to turn them in after helping them get away. “And yeah, haven’t had to come up with a lot of impromptu cover stories.”

“You do seem like more the ‘rebel misfit’ brand of Avalanche than the para-military brand.” Tuesti held the door open after he walked through and went to sit at his desk once Biggs was inside. He looked back at where Biggs was still frowning near the doorway and sighed, clearly regretting the lighter tone he’d been taking. “I didn't mean that as an insult.”

“No, it’s just…” Biggs didn’t care that Tuesti had noticed he wasn’t a professional. He knew he wasn’t. He had gotten great at scouting, decent with a gun, and he was generally good at making and maintaining connections with people like warehouse guards who could be paid to look away. He wasn’t some kind of spy or mole, though, and he didn’t think you could just jump into that kind of dishonesty and expect it to go smoothly. “This is strange.”

He wasn’t mad at Tuesti for speaking casually for a moment, he just felt… odd. This was the office of one of Shinra’s top executives. Unlike the man himself, it was everything he’d have expected it to be. Spacious. Modern. More like a rich person’s living room than anything else. Once, not all that long ago, Wedge, Jessie and him had been wandering around after a night of drinks at Seventh Heaven giggling about all the ways they’d trash a space like this one day, if they got a chance. They’d found some old monitors dumped near the edge of town and had set them up to throw rocks at, which hadn’t gone well for him or Jessie since they were drunk enough to need each other’s help walking. Wedge had amazing aim no matter how much he’d had to drink and had probably won their game by a lot, but nobody was really keeping score. Biggs treasured memories like that.

But now the dusty lanes he used to roam with his friends were buried under rubble, Seventh Heaven was crushed, and Jessie might never open her eyes again. And here he was in one of those fancy offices they’d mocked together. What was he supposed to do – sit in one of the overly plush armchairs across from Tuesti? Have a nap on the chic leather couch? 

“I suppose it is.” Tuesti’s eyes were sad. His tone was politely distant again. Biggs didn’t think he should feel bad about that, but he did. “I have quite a lot of work to do before tomorrow morning. I’ve pre-emptively tampered with the camera feeds on this floor, so you can do what you like.”

“Wait.” Biggs took a few steps into the room. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, only that he didn’t want to leave the conversation on such strained terms. Not that he should care too much about being on strained terms with someone Domino had accurately described as ‘not an ally, not even neutral’. There was no way to look at it where Tuesti wasn’t on the other side of this fight, but there was also no way to look at it where he had been anything but good to Biggs since they’d met earlier that day. 

“Your assistant – aren’t you worried that she saw through that lie too?” Biggs was honestly curious about that, but realised after he’d asked that it sounded like an accusation. Maybe not the best way to carry the conversation on to a better place.

“She definitely saw through it, but I trust her.” Tuesti was more focused on his computer screen than Biggs, who was feeling somehow more awkward just standing in the middle of the room. 

“Where’s everyone else?”

Tuesti sighed and looked back at Biggs, seemingly annoyed at being interrupted. “A lot of people in my department are needed in the field right now, doing safety inspections and damage assessments. The rest have the week off. Midgar is in mourning.” 

“The other floor and the elevator seemed pretty crowded.” 

“Not all departments are observing the mourning period.” 

“The people I passed didn’t seem to be mourning at all.” 

“People mourn differently. Maybe you should be less judgmental.”

Biggs had just been trying to keep the conversation going until they got to a good place again, but now it seemed like they were starting to fight. He probably shouldn’t expect criticizing Shinra employees to go over as well with Tuesti as it did with his teammates. 

“Okay, sorry, backing off. I’m not trying to give you more reasons to regret this.”

“Why do you think I regret this?” Tuesti just looked curious now.

“Why wouldn’t you? You don’t believe in my cause, I had a gun on you earlier, your, uh, ‘colleagues’ will probably kill you if you get caught and now I’m being annoying.” 

“Please sit down.” Tuesti didn’t say it like he was offering Biggs a seat so much as like he was begging him to stop hovering. Biggs supposed he wasn’t the only one feeling awkward. Sitting in the luxurious armchair in front of Tuesti’s desk still felt irrationally like a betrayal of his cause and his friends, but Biggs knew that was silly. It was just a chair, and he wasn’t realistically going to stand here all night. He sat down. 

“We’re not going to come to an understanding. I don’t have a high opinion of Avalanche, but I do understand what you must think of Shinra right now. And me. That’s all fine. I already told you why I've decided to help despite all that, and there’s no reason for us to ever see each other again past tomorrow. We don’t have to find common ground.”

“I guess not…” 

Tuesti turned back to his work then, untying his tie after a few moments and placing it on his desk. Biggs felt rude watching him so he did end up going over to the leather sofa on the other side of the room. He hadn’t slept since he’d woken up in Leaf House the other day. Maybe he should have still been on high alert around the Shinra executive, but he honestly just wasn’t. Tuesti wasn’t going to turn on him, and he was exhausted. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but he closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them it was dark outside. Tuesti was still focused just as intently on his computer screen, straining his eyes in the low light of his desk lamp. 

Biggs might have gone back to sleep, but his chest was aching and itching. When he looked down at himself there was blood seeping through his borrowed dress shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm enjoying Domino. I may include him more than I'd originally intended. 
> 
> I am SO glad that Reeve knows Biggs's name now. Referencing him without his name while in Reeve's POV was getting really annoying.


	4. Chapter 4

Generally, Biggs was someone who thought ahead. He planned for every scenario he could think of, never rushing in without an outline for what to do if every conceivable thing went wrong. If he’d been able to treat going after Wedge the way he treated Avalanche operations he would have addressed every item on the list of what could go wrong. He’d have gotten a better map, brought a change of bandages, and even tracked down HQ to swallow his pride and ask for backup. There just hadn’t been any time, though. The worst-case scenario hadn’t been his wounds opening up again, it’d been that Wedge would be executed before he could get to him. 

Looking at the white shirt – which had seemed nearly obnoxiously clean and unwrinkled before he’d put it on – soaked in red Biggs cursed himself for the lack of planning, despite the rushed circumstances. The pain had been a dull ache through the day and while it had only seemed a bit sharper when he first woke up, it was getting worse fast. 

Tuesti was still working away, eyes glued to his computer. He hadn’t noticed the man starting to bleed all over his sofa. A part of Biggs hated that he was going to need the executive’s help again – that this Shinra company man, friendly as he seemed, was going to see him this vulnerable – but he was his only option. 

“H-hey, Tuesti…” Talking took a lot of effort, he couldn’t manage to yell.

“Hm?” He didn’t look, and Biggs wasn’t sure the ‘hm’ was anything but autopilot. 

“I could use a h-hand here.” Biggs tried to sit up, which he failed at with a groan louder than he was managing to talk. That was what finally got Tuesti’s attention.

At first he only glanced over in response to the sound before turning back to his work, but it was only a second before the information from his eyes broke through whatever business-related matter his brain was still puzzling out. Panic overtook his face and he was up out of his chair, knocking it back violently as he rushed over.

“Oh god, what happened?!” 

“I got shot a bit and then the Sector 7 plate fell on me.” Biggs tried to smile as Tuesti knelt beside the couch and started applying pressure to the wound. 

“How are you alive? Why didn’t you say earlier that you were hurt?” The wounds weren’t life threatening anymore, as long as they were seen to. The doctor in Sector 5 told Folia he’d slept through the worst of it. Biggs was worried, of course, he was bleeding, but as long as Tuesti had access to medical supplies this should be something they could manage. Biggs was worried, but Tuesti looked devastated. Like a cord inside him that was already stretched too far had just come a bit closer to snapping.

Why? They didn’t know each other and it’d be a lot easier to smuggle just one fugitive down to the slums. Not that Biggs really thought Tuesti that cold at this point, but it still seemed like this was affecting him more than it should be.

“Luck and magic.” If they’d had to rely on only physical medical care he and Jessie would both be dead. It was because of the magical healing that he’d been feeling well enough for so much activity, but when you were hurt as badly as he’d been a couple rounds of Cure didn’t get you out of the woods. Magic sped up your body’s own healing abilities exponentially, and when you were as close to death as he’d been that meant a lot of strain on your body’s resources. A person who’d suffered serious wounds and then had Cura cast on them might feel fine right away, but all that new tissue their body had grown in a rush was weak. Unstable. A bandage could still be needed for a while so you didn’t open yourself up moving around. Biggs had moved around enough, and had had severe enough wounds, that the neither the tissue grown through magic or the bandage could stop him from opening up again. “And an overworked doctor living in the Sector 5 slums.”

A lightbulb visibly snapped on behind Tuesti’s eyes and he was suddenly running back to his desk, digging through a bottom drawer before running back with a faintly glowing green orb. Healing materia. 

Tuesti came back and knelt down by the sofa again. “Do you have bandages? We’ll have to unwrap them first.” 

Biggs nodded. Using magic to heal wounds while you had something like a bandage wound too tightly to your skin could go badly. Biggs had seen members of the neighbourhood watch end up having to have wounds re-opened in order to pull out bandages that had ended up partly inside them. He tried to sit up and shrug off the suit jacket he was still wearing. 

He wasn’t having any luck himself, but he wasn’t struggling long before Tuesti was wrapping his arms around him and pulling him into a sitting position. Biggs thought about how he hadn’t wanted the other man close enough to help him tie a tie earlier. That seemed a bit overdramatic now. Tuesti helped him out of the jacket and then retrieved scissors for the bandages while Biggs started unbuttoning the shirt. He ended up needing Tuesti’s help getting that off too. Finally, though, the bandages were cut off him and Tuesti was casting Cure. 

“Why do you keep healing materia in your desk?”

“I like to be prepared.” Biggs wondered briefly if Tuesti was also guilty of ‘worst-casing’, as Wedge called it. 

It only took a couple casts for the bleeding to stop, and all in all Biggs hadn’t even lost a worrying amount of blood. It could have gotten pretty dicey if he’d been alone, but Tuesti had seen to it while things still looked worse than they were. 

A moment after it was clear the healing had worked Tuesti was still kneeling on the floor in front of Biggs, clutching the healing material tightly and visibly controlling his breathing. His eyes were relieved, though, even as he was struggling to wind down physically. This was all affecting him so much more than made sense. 

That was when Biggs realize why Tuesti was actually helping him and Wedge. It wasn’t just that too many people had already died recently, even if that was what he thought it was. It was that he specifically didn’t want any more blood on his own hands. Even more than that, more than not wanting to be responsible for anyone dying, he wanted to do something good. To feel like he had the ability to do good, like he wasn’t powerless. Like he probably had been the night of the collapse.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“What?” Tuesti looked up at his face and Biggs tried to smile down at him, although it probably didn’t come off that well.

“Sector 7. We both know that was Shinra, but it wasn’t you.” 

“You can’t know that.” Tuesti seemed confused about how they’d gotten on this topic, and not quite sure he trusted why Biggs was saying what he was. 

“Yeah, I can.” This man, who’d just been terrified he was going to fail in saving the life of someone he considered an eco-terrorist, was not a murderer. Certainly not a mass murderer. Biggs didn’t need to know how the leadup to the collapse had gone to know that. 

Tuesti stood with a sigh and took a seat on the sofa next to Biggs. “I am part of the ‘Shinra machine’, as you put it.” 

“Yeah, you are.” Biggs wasn’t going to absolve him of that, but he didn’t say it with the aggression he would have hours earlier either. 

“I should have found a way to change the president’s mind.” Tuesti was leaning forwards, holding his head in his hands.

“No.” 

Tuesti’s head snapped towards him. “No?”

“No. What you should have done was get the fuck out of here years ago. You can’t have just noticed now that you’re working with psychopaths.” 

Tuesti laughed wryly at that and stood, moving to a cabinet a few paces away and pulling out a crystal decanter. “Drink?”

“Why not?”

Tuesti half-filled two glasses with a dark amber liquid and carried them back, offering one for Biggs to take. “Since we’re talking about the heavy things anyways, do you mind if I ask a question?”

“Are you going to make me justify Avalanche now because I questioned your career choices?”

“No. I just want to know what blasting agent you used at the reactors.”

That seemed random. Biggs would have thought Shinra’s own investigations would have answered that question already. 

“I don’t know. Someone else made the bombs.”

“Was it something you could steal from a warehouse or something you were provided with?”

“We’re not working with Wutai. My group’s not, anyways. We stole what we used for the second bomb from the warehouse on the Sector 7 plate. It was supposed to be weaker than the first bomb. We wanted to cripple the reactor, not damage everything around it.”

Tuesti was laughing darkly again, and taking far too big a gulp of a drink you were definitely supposed to sip. “That kind of damage doesn’t happen when you’re trying for a smaller explosion.” 

“We thought it might have been a reaction with the mako.” Biggs stated defensively, causing Tuesti to shake his head.

“Not unless you set off a whole lot of bombs, or one bomb using an extremely powerful blasting agent.” Biggs supposed he’d know, since he was the guy who designed the things. “You were set up.”

“Are you saying that Shinra blew up its own reactors?” Biggs wouldn’t put it past them in a moral sense, but he couldn't understand why they would want to.

When the first explosion was so much bigger than they’d thought, Biggs had been the first one to say that it was the planet that mattered more than the city. Honestly, he’d been as shaken as everybody else, but they’d known going in that there could be damage and he’d already made his peace with it. Or he’d told himself he had, anyways. If he really had he probably wouldn’t be this relieved to find out they weren’t totally responsible for the damage. 

Tuesti downed the rest of his drink and went back to his desk. “I don’t have any bandages here. They might be hard to get at this hour unless I talk to security, but I’d rather avoid that. Do you think you can go without for now?”

“I should be able to take it easy now. Unless we get caught.” 

Biggs wanted to ask what he was working on – not to clumsily carry a conversation to a better endpoint, like earlier, but because he was starting to feel more comfortable talking to the other man and was curious. He thought he’d probably taken up enough of his attention for now, though, so he left it alone.

-

Reeve worked through most of the night. In truth all the things that needed to be done, and what they would cost, were the same as they had been in the draft he hadn’t been allowed to present to the late president, and he could probably have tried to present the same thing to Rufus. However, in his first draft he’d still been coming at the proposal as if it was a given that they had to do something and the only thing up for debate would be what or how much. Biggs was right, he hadn’t just noticed now what kind of people he was working with, but he’d thought they all at least shared an interest in maintaining a sense of order. 

He’d also always thought of Neo Midgar as an ideal for the future of Midgar, not a literal city they were going to build at a second – probably fictional – location.

Rufus seemed to be more in touch with reality than his father had apparently become. But he didn’t seem to have any more empathy. Reeve got the feeling he wouldn’t have destroyed Sector 7, but not that he was in any rush to rebuild it. So, Reeve’s job would still be to make a case for rebuilding at all before he got into any specifics. 

Most of what he’d been doing all night was trying to find arguments for why the various programs he was suggesting were an investment that would benefit Shinra in the long run while policing his own tone so it didn’t sound like he thought it was their responsibility as custodians of the city. 

He’d fallen asleep some time around 4 am, face planted in his computer, and had woken up at about 6 to his assistant clearing her throat and coming into his office. She came bearing a tray with two paper coffee cups, a plastic cup of water, a paper bag that likely contained pastries, and a bottle of aspirin. 

“Thank you, Leah.” Reeve rubbed his eyes and went for the water and aspirin first.

“Should I take care of the laundry?” Reeve blinked for a moment, confused, before he remembered that Biggs was still there. As was the shirt he’d bled through last night. 

“Yes, please.” His assistant was the person Reeve trusted most at Shinra, and he knew he was lucky to have her. She wasn’t going to ask who ‘Biggums’ actually was or why he’d been bleeding, and she wasn't going to mention it to anybody. 

The shirt was on the floor by where Biggs was still seated – awake – on the sofa. He’d put his own clothes back on for the rest of the evening after the incident when he’d needed healed. Leah exchanged a brief ‘good morning’ with him, which he still seemed to feel fairly awkward about, as she retrieved the shirt and put it in a trashcan, removing the bag to take with her as she left. 

“Leah brought coffee and breakfast.” Reeve said, meaning it as an invitation. He expected Biggs to maybe come over to get some food and then hover awkwardly near his desk again, like he’d done the night before. He was surprised when the man sat across from him without hesitation before digging into the bag for a croissant. 

“So, what’ve you been working on all night?”

“I’m presenting a potential rebuilding and recovery strategy to the new president in about two hours. Mostly I’ve been working on how to ‘sell’ the plan.”

“Meaning this plan was turned down once already.” Biggs smiled in a knowing way that Reeve found equal parts charming and annoying. Annoying only because he’d think someone who had lived in Sector 7 would expect more to be done about it. Was Reeve genuinely the only person who had thought a rational response to this was a given?

“No.” Reeve stated slightly defensively before remembering it was actually worse than that. “Not exactly…”

“Oh, wow, President Shinra wouldn’t even look at it would he? Bastard.” Biggs ripped off a piece of pastry and popped it in his mouth. Reeve was inclined to agree, but he felt like he shouldn’t do so verbally. The radical who’d been so tense around Reeve the day before now wanted to… commiserate about Reeve’s boss? Obviously Biggs hated the former president and it wasn’t strange that he’d disparage him, but it seemed like he was expecting Reeve to join in. Which he probably shouldn’t do. It felt dangerous, somehow. 

“Well, there’s a new President Shinra.”

“And you think that means things will change?” Biggs seemed amused, like Reeve had said he still believed in Mog the Moogle. 

Reeve wasn’t thinking of Biggs as a terrorist anymore now that he was pretty sure his group hadn’t caused, or been trying to cause, the damage that had happened around the reactors. They’d probably only been trying to destroy the hearts of the reactors – still an attack on the way of life in Midgar, but not its population. They were radicals and saboteurs, criminals even, but terrorists was a stretch.

Biggs was still a radical planetologist, though. Still biased against the entirety of the Shinra corporation and the system that both brought order to this city and allowed there to be a city at all. Reeve started on a final round of edits for his presentation fueled by a desire to prove Biggs wrong. A rational response was possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope nobody minds that I just assigned a random name to Reeve's assistant. I think Leah's a pretty name. 
> 
> In case anyone's wondering, this fic will stay in Midgar. Reeve will be doing stuff as Cait and that'll be referenced, but the POV will never be with the party. 
> 
> A pretty big moment for Reeve in the original game, I think is calling Barret out on the cost of Avalanche's actions. But in the original game, the explosion is totally Avalanche's fault and they changed that up in the remake. I always thought of that as one reason Reeve takes so long to really choose the party over Shinra and I'm curious to see how future installments of the Remake will handle that not really being true anymore. For this fic, I've had Reeve find out now to remove it as an excuse going forward. Not that Avalanche's actions aren't still extremely questionable. 
> 
> As I'm replaying the remake right now I was reading one of those loading screen descriptions for Jessie and it said she, Biggs, and Wedge all grew up together.... I'm just ignoring that, sorry. It doesn't make sense to me since they established that Biggs had a close connection to Leaf House and also that Jessie grew on the plate (she even says all that 'we were living the good life' stuff that Biggs and Wedge don't join in on). So I'm sticking with the idea that Biggs grew up in Leaf House before running it at some point before he joined Avalanche.
> 
> Thank you anyone who's reading this fic =)


	5. Chapter 5

Reeve shouldn’t have been surprised. Shouldn’t have been shocked. Shouldn’t have felt like the plate was crumbling and falling beneath his feet for the third time that week because it was the _third time_ in _one week_. 

Dropping the Sector 7 plate was unthinkable. Stating that they would do nothing in the aftermath was unthinkable. A second, new, president saying the same thing after having implied he was more open to the idea than his father… 

Reeve felt like he was going to vomit. He folded his hands together on the glossy boardroom table in front of him to stop them from shaking. 

Rufus had heard his proposal, at least, and had even seen the potential in parts of it. He had partially approved one aspect of it – an employment program for survivors from Sector 7. Except instead of being paid for their efforts sorting through or clearing rubble (something Reeve had heard from his staff many were already doing and had hoped to compensate them for) and eventually on rebuilding they would (unless they could find other work) be directed towards helping rebuild Reactors 1 and 5. Rufus was also intent on pursuing the promised land for its resource potential, but not necessarily on abandoning Midgar. 

Oh, and these jobs would not pay on par with what any construction companies who were also commissioned would make, of course. Rufus had interpreted the cheapness of the labour as the major benefit. So there wouldn’t even really be money going back into the community in the slums.

Reeve had been told that his department’s focus for the foreseeable future should be the reactors, as well as some kind of memorial project that would boost morale in the city. A statue, maybe a small park. They may revisit rebuilding Sector 7 in the future, but for now he shouldn’t devote any more resources to it. Not even his own time. 

Rufus also set the main priorities for all the other departments in the meeting, but Reeve wasn’t listening. Half in denial, he was still puzzling through what he could say to fix this. He had anticipated every objection he could imagine and come up with a rebuttal. He had memorized all of his arguments. But he must be forgetting something, there must be something he forgot to say that if he could just remember before this meeting was over… 

“Reeve?” Reeve’s eyes snapped back to Rufus from where they’d been glued to a point somewhere behind Palmer’s left shoulder on the other side of the room. 

“Yes?” For a moment Reeve almost had hope again. 

“I heard you requested helicopter service for this afternoon?”

“Yes, I was going to go survey the damage first hand.” Reeve realised as he answered that his plan to get Biggs and his friend home might be shot. Surveying the damage could count as devoting his own time to a recovery project that wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t even be able to do this one thing.

To his left, Scarlet laughed under her breath. 

In the seat to Rufus’s right, Heidegger snorted in a way that was both amused and derisive. “’Survey the damage’. Careful Tuesti, your heart’s bleeding all over the place again.” 

“No, it’s good.” Rufus continued in the same calm, unaffected, tone he’d used every other time Reeve had heard the new president talk. “Take a small camera crew. It’ll play well for us to show Shinra taking an interest. Make some comments about how much we care about the lowercity and tease the upcoming employment opportunities. We’ll run the clip on the news this evening.”

“Yes sir.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth and he knew he couldn’t leave it at that. He had to _do something_. “Regarding that, I think If we were also to –“

“That will be all.”

-

After Tuesti had left for his big meeting Biggs had showered in the private en suite connected to the office. Jessie’s filters had improved the water quality back home by a lot, but _wow_ was there a difference. It wasn’t cloudy at all and there was no smell – not less of a smell, no smell. Aside from the soap. The hot water was actually hot, and the water pressure was amazing. Biggs couldn’t even begin to feel guilty about enjoying it. 

Now, he was dressed in yet another of Tuesti’s spare suits (the man must spend a lot of nights at the office, given how many changes of clothes he had there). Tuesti had coordinated with Domino earlier to confirm that he’d taken care of a disguise for Wedge and that Wedge would meet them as they headed to the helicopter that afternoon. Biggs was worried about that part of the plan – the walk to the helicopter, and potentially having to interact with and deceive more Shinra employees. The helicopter would have a pilot, at least. And would Tuesti be expected to take guards with him? Tuesti said ‘no’, but Biggs wasn’t convinced. There was also the issue of the fact that at least one person – the pilot – would notice that the two men Tuesti had flown down with did not return to the chopper before they left for the plate again. Tuesti had thought of that as well and seemed confident he could pass Biggs and Wedge off as surveyors from his department who needed more time to work. Biggs supposed he’d just have to trust him, again.

Biggs was looking at himself in a long mirror – still resenting the office-worker version of himself in the reflection, though marginally less now that he’d ditched the tie completely in favor of a couple open buttons – when Tuesti got back. 

Biggs could feel the tension radiating from the man across the room as he shut the door behind him carefully, checked to make sure the blinds were closed, and walked to his desk. He stopped in front of it and braced his arms against it. Biggs got the impression that if Tuesti were a different man then everything on the desk would be splattered across the floor. 

He didn’t know Tuesti well enough to know whether he’d be able to hold onto the remains of his composure if disturbed, and he doubted in that moment that the director even remembered he was there. So, Biggs stayed quiet and let Tuesti cope on his own… at first.

All that guilt and powerlessness Biggs had seen in him the night earlier started to slip through the frustration. Tuesti hunched farther over his desk, his generally upright posture crumpling. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut. He was shaking slightly. It was the most alone Biggs could remember seeing anyone look.

His proposal had been turned down, obviously. It seemed like Tuesti really cared about helping the people affected by the collapse, so his plan had probably been good. Something that would have made the lives of people in the slums a bit better. There was no way something like that would ever be approved by Shinra. 

Tuesti had been determined when he left, though, and now it seemed all those hopes had been crushed. Biggs felt compelled to help him, although he wasn’t sure how he could. Still, he found himself approaching slowly, stopping about two meters away so as not to crowd the man.

“Hey, I’m sure you did your best.” Biggs already hated the Shira board so much for a lot more serious things than making one of their own cry, but a single tear worked its way out of Tuesti’s tightly-closed eyes and Biggs found it in him to hate them just a bit more.

“There must have been something else I could have said. Maybe if I’d asked for less, or -“

“Don’t do that to yourself.”

“- if I’d figured out what it was Rufus actually wanted. He implied he was open to the idea, so maybe there was something he was looking for and I –

“You need to slow down.”

“missed it, or maybe-“

“Tuesti –“

“I should have tried to get support from the board, somehow –“

“Reeve!” Biggs didn’t know if it was switching to his first name that got his attention, or Bigg’s hand on his shoulder. He’d thought earlier he shouldn’t crowd him, since he didn’t know how he’d react while he was this wound up and didn’t want to make things worse, but coming closer and touching the man hadn’t been a conscious decision. It didn’t seem to have triggered a bad reaction, anyways, and he had his attention now. 

“Look at me.” He already was, technically – he’d opened his eyes and had turned his head slightly towards Biggs – but Biggs pushed his shoulder gently to encourage him to let go of the desk and turn. Reeve did so hesitantly, and Biggs took hold of both his shoulders so they were facing each other head on.

It was more obvious when he had a clearer view of Reeve’s face that he was way past exhausted, in addition to all the rest of it. He realised that what he’d taken for disinterest the day before had likely just been distraction and over-tiredness. 

Biggs realized he didn’t know what to say. It had been important a second ago to get his attention so he could help somehow, but none of the thoughts running through Biggs’s head were actually comforting or encouraging. The way Reeve had helped him the night before, they way he seemed to care so much, had Biggs feeling like this was an ally or friend who needed support. But that was a feeling, and even in a moment this charged Biggs was aware that it wasn’t true. A whole lot of other people weren’t sleeping much lately, were working themselves into early graves, or were feeling like if they’d done something just a bit differently maybe someone they loved would still be alive. Objectively, Reeve Tuesti was still better off than all of them. And he was still a board member at the company who’d caused all of it. 

If Reeve were an ally Biggs would tell him he was doing everything he could and that he wasn’t alone. It was tempting to say it anyways because it felt like it _should_ be true, and he wanted badly to help Reeve pull himself together. But it just wasn’t accurate. Reeve wasn’t doing everything he could because if he were he’d be working against Shinra, and as long as he was still choosing to support the status quo then Biggs was afraid he really was alone. Biggs couldn’t be there for him with things as they were now, even if part of him was starting to want to be.

“Just, breathe, alright.” Was what Biggs landed on after a slightly awkward pause in which Reeve started to get lost in his own head again. “In 4, hold 7, out 8. Follow me.” 

-

Reeve watched Biggs exaggerate his breathing and followed. As focusing on his own breathing gradually became easier he started to feel somewhat ridiculous. This was the second time this man who he had only met yesterday had seen him in a near-panicked state (maybe more than ‘near’ this time). He’d been keeping his composure around people like Heidegger for years and now he was slipping around this criminal he barely knew.

It didn’t feel like he needed to be worried about that, though. He didn’t think Biggs was out to use this against him. Both times he’d only tried to help, and he was helping. The breathing exercise had brought Reeve back to the moment and now the weight of Biggs’s hands on his shoulders was holding him there. 

“Thank you. I apologize for –“ 

“No, don’t.”

Despite feeling a bit silly about it all, it was still a few more moments before Reeve broke contact. He raised his hand intent on squeezing one of the ones touching him before letting go…but ultimately, he didn’t want to act overly familiar. Biggs was being kind because he saw it was needed, but this was still someone who hadn’t wanted him remotely in his space the day before (except when it’d been his only option). Reeve stepped back away from Biggs and forced a somewhat awkward smile.

“We’ll have to go over a couple things quickly. The pilot will probably be too focused on his work to ask questions, but we’re also bringing a cameraman and a reporter now and they may want to make smalltalk. We’ll need a cover story for you and your friend.”

“A cameraman and a reporter?” Biggs crossed his arms and leaned slightly against Reeve’s desk, clearly not happy about the news. Neither was Reeve, honestly, although he supposed it was better than not being able to go at all.

“Rufus learned I was going down and asked me to…” Reeve supposed there was no need to censor or justify it, considering who he was speaking to. “To make a propaganda spot, essentially.” 

“And you’re good with that? Going down and pretending Shinra cares for the camera, when you know who actually did it. When Shinra just vetoed your recovery plan.”

“It’s better to do as the president requests.”

“Oh, the new boss, of course. You’re right, it is ‘better’ to compromise everything it seems like you might actually believe in.”

"You'd rather I refuse on principle? Throw a tantrum?" Reeve was tempted to roll his eyes. It wasn’t that he wasn’t acutely aware that that’s what he was going to be doing, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone along with something he didn’t like and it wouldn’t be the last. “I used to try to stand on principle sometimes, with the old president. It never accomplished anything. I’m not giving up on building a better future for Midgar using my current station, and if I want to get anywhere I’ll need to be on good terms with Rufus Shinra. So, yes, it’s better. My ego can handle a little compromise.” 

Biggs’s eyes softened and he looked briefly like he felt sorry for him – like he pitied him, even. Then he shook his head and it was gone. “If you say so. Let’s just go over my cover.”

Reeve accepted the subject change gladly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!


	6. Chapter 6

There had been public security officers waiting on the helipad to accompany them. Biggs had been worried for a moment, but it didn’t seem like Reeve had much trouble sending them away. They actually seemed like they were expecting to be sent away. Biggs got the feeling Reeve didn't let security tail him often, which seemed like a strange risk to take. 

On the flight down, the reporters did end up wanting to make small talk. Biggs had memorized his cover story: he was a surveyor from the Urban Development department investigating the structural integrity of the Sector 5 pillar in the wake of both the other pillar’s collapse and the reactor explosion (Reeve had assured him this had already been done and the pillar was fine when he'd started to actually wonder). Reeve had even coached him in a couple terms surveyors might use that would make him sound authentic and boring so as not to invite further discussion. It didn’t end up mattering; Wedge was there. 

Wedge had pretty much the same cover story, but that hadn’t even come up. The reporters weren’t there to get the real scoop on what Shinra might be doing to prevent future accidents, so they weren’t that interested in them as ‘surveyors’. Wedge was just being his usual easy-going, personable, self and regaling them with stories about his cats. The cameraperson even seemed to be enjoying them (the on-air reporter was just nodding along). They probably hadn’t even needed a cover, but Biggs still felt better having one.

Reeve was focused on a touchscreen the entire flight and didn’t join in the conversation at all.

They were landing before long – in Sector 5, by the station. If Tuesti were really here to check out the damage he’d be doing a fly over Sector 7, but since this had become a propaganda mission it made more sense to land somewhere a crowd might gather. 

Once they were out of the chopper Reeve wished them good luck with their fictional job, and that was it. 

There was no real goodbye. Reeve turned his focus from Biggs and Wedge to only Biggs for just a second and smiled a bit regretfully, but then he was turning from them and to the reporters. They began discussing their shoot. Biggs and Wedge were home safely and free to go, but Biggs still felt like he had unfinished business with Reeve. 

He couldn’t think of a reason to stick around, though. He and Wedge headed back towards Elmyra’s – Wedge was eager to visit Jessie, and Biggs knew he should too even though the sight of her as she was still disturbed him. They ended up stopping at the restaurant to pick up food to bring to Elmyra’s, since they really shouldn’t expect her to feed them every time they showed up. They agreed they had to do what they could to help her too, since she was letting Jessie and Marlene stay with her. 

“I really thought you’d be in some Turk holding cell getting your fingernails peeled off, at best. I hate what happened to Jessie, but even when you factor that in…” Biggs shook his head as they walked towards the other end of town. It felt surreal to be just strolling back home, in clothes he could never afford (he should really ditch them asap before someone thought he was worth robbing. He’d been getting some sideways looks), after the previous day. Everything since the pillar had felt surreal, actually, like he was on borrowed time. Logic said he should be dead right now.

“I can’t believe you went in without a plan.” Wedge teased, making them both smile although Biggs forced an eyeroll and shoved his shoulder lightly. “Not even Plan A, never mind B through Z.”

“I’ve never gone to Z, and it’s not like they don’t pay off.” 

“Yeah.” Wedge smiled, but it turned a bit serious a moment later. “I know what you mean, though. We’re crazy lucky, right? They destroyed our whole town to get us but all our friends are still alive. Our human friends, anyways.” Biggs remembered he’d only seen one out of three cats. He hoped the other two were out there somewhere, but it didn’t seem likely.

“We can’t count on luck – we’ll have to be even more careful from now on. I think these new comms from Domino will help. I wouldn’t have had to assume the worst if I’d just been able to call you.”

“You wouldn’t have made friends with Director Tuesti then either, though.” Count on Wedge to look for a bright side. Biggs wouldn’t call Reeve a friend – besides their ‘ideological differences’, they were unlikely to ever speak again. “You think he’ll come around?”

“He cares a lot, but he’s convinced he can do more for the city working with Shinra than against it. Maybe he’ll see he’s wrong some day.” 

They were waiting for their takeout order (the mayor had given Wedge some money along with their new comms, thankfully, because Biggs was totally broke) when Biggs started noticing a crowd forming down the road, by the screen. Reeve was probably starting his little propaganda session.

Biggs hadn’t planned on watching. It’d just be a bunch of bullshit. He found himself feeling curious, though. He didn’t understand how Reeve, who clearly cared about the city, could stand to lie to its people like he was about to. Would he even be able to get through it? Biggs decided he wanted to see for himself.

He didn’t want to dwell on it, but he also wanted something more than the brief non-goodbye from earlier. What? He didn’t know yet.

“Hey, I’ll meet up with you back at Elmyra’s, alright?”

It seemed like everyone nearby – a lot of people this time in the afternoon – was interested in the man who’d come down in the helicopter, who was obviously from Shinra. A lot of people probably recognized him, even. Biggs hung back by the edge of the crowd and watched. He arrived just in time to see the reporter hand some cash to a man off to the side. 

They played it like Reeve was just walking through, inspecting, and that the camera was just there to document damage from reactor debris or something. The man who’d been paid approached Reeve to express how he _knew_ Shinra would come to their aid! It was half a question about what would be done, half empty praise for the company, and 100% fake. 

“Thank you for the question.” Reeve smiled like a politician. “These are trying times, but Shinra is ready and able to handle enemies both inside and outside the city. Midgar is strong because of its people, and President Shinra – the new President Shinra – has made recovery a top priority so that we can preserve that strength into the future. I’ve been sent to see first hand what needs to be done. We know that many of you have lost your livelihoods, and soon we’ll be rolling out new opportunities for work so that you can continue to support your families. 

The answer to ‘would he be able to get through it?’ was a resounding yes, it turned out. He hit all the usual propaganda notes – ‘there are forces you need protecting from’ and ‘Shinra will protect you’ in addition to the ‘we have a recovery plan’ that must be killing him to say since he had had one and it was thrown out. It didn’t look hard on him at all, of course, and Biggs realized he shouldn’t have thought it would. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d seen Tuesti speak. Scarlet, Heidegger, and him were all on the news once in a while, always spouting the same lies (Palmer less so, since the space program had fizzled out. Hojo never). This was only the first time he’d heard Reeve speak since he’d felt like a real person to Biggs. He knew that the man he’d helped calm in his office that morning had been ‘the real’ Reeve, but this – the smiling liar – was part of him too. It felt like it shouldn't be - shouldn't have to be - but it was.

Knowing he must hate it shouldn’t make this much of a difference to the way Biggs perceived it all, but it did. Normally Biggs was sort of numb to propaganda, but right now it was making him as angry as if he was hearing it for the first time. If Reeve didn’t want to be doing things like this then he should just do everyone a favor and _stop_. He was also frustrated because he knew there was some truth to the lies he was spouting, if only in the sentiment – Shinra didn’t care, but Reeve did, and for all the supposed power he should have in his position he still couldn’t do anything.

Except he _could_ , just not in the way he was trying.

Biggs felt the beginning of a plan forming. 

-

After the staged ‘question’ allowed them to start off the session, Reeve switched to autopilot. He had already worked out exactly what to say, not that it had ever taken much thought. It was the same message as always, but he rearranged the order and specified there was a new president everyone should have faith in. 

The part about recovery being a priority because that's what the people of Midgar were owed stung quite a bit, even through the haze of autopilot, but there was nothing for it put to keep going. 

Once his intro segment was over the reporter stepped in and asked the expected questions. Would there be war with Wutai? The new president, like his father, only wanted peace – but they were prepared to react if provoked (Rufus hadn’t decided yet, and the look on Heidegger’s face when he’d realised his plans were up in the air again had been a rare bright spot in the week). What was the new president like? A visionary like his father before him (a bastard, but a more realistic pragmatist than his father). How much of an investment would Shinra be making in the recovery project? 

Reeve paused, but recovered before anyone probably noticed. “We won’t know the final total until we’re done.”

It sounded like a 'we're going to do everything we can' but didn't technically make any promises. Reeve didn't really like how good at this he was. 

Still, he’d have to advise the reporter to delete this part of the recording before anyone beyond the live audience saw him asking a real question. Reeve wasn’t about to tell on him for doing what a reporter should do, of course, but he could find himself out of a job if his direct or indirect superiors couldn’t count on him to stay on script. 

Overall everything went smoothly. The people who were inclined to believe in Shinra were assured, the people who weren’t were scowling, and Reeve hated himself a little. The usual. 

He did spot Biggs standing near the back while he was still talking, frowning deeply. Reeve found he didn’t like looking at him while he talked, and by the time it was over he wasn’t standing in the same spot anymore. 

Reeve didn’t want to stick around and talk to anyone after he was done. They’d ask questions he couldn’t answer honestly, make accusations that were true, or – worst of all – thank him. It was better to just get going. As he turned to leave, however, there was a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, wait a sec.” 

“Oh. Hello.” Reeve hadn’t expected to be speaking to Biggs again. It was not an unwelcome turn of events – he’d regretted not being able to say a proper goodbye earlier, after how he’d helped him through the embarrassing episode that morning. “I suppose this is goodbye then.”

“Not yet.” Biggs removed his hand as Reeve turned to face him and crossed his arms in front of himself. It looked like he was issuing a challenge. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” 

For a large chunk of their short acquaintance, Biggs had seemed averse to everything from casual conversation to sitting in his office. There’d been a moment the night before where he had been afraid the other man would just stand awkwardly a few steps into the office all night, glaring at and judging him while he tried to work. Then there’d been the incident with the bleeding and his manner had changed. He seemed less tense after that, and had even helped him through the state he’d been in after the meeting. Biggs seemed like a steady, level-headed, kind of person in addition to being brave enough to storm Shinra HQ alone to save his friend. In another life, he was someone Reeve might have liked to know better. 

In this life, Biggs was still an extremist saboteur and a criminal. It didn’t make any logical sense to go anywhere alone with him. Reeve didn’t think Biggs was going to lead him away from witnesses and stab him, but he did know that taking a Shinra executive hostage would be a good play for Avalanche. Best case scenario they’d get a ransom (it wouldn't happen, but they didn't know that) and worst case scenario they’d make Shinra look weak. Reeve had dismissed the guards that had tried to accompany them that morning because he always did - because they were Heidegger’s subordinates and he couldn’t trust they might not have orders to harm, undermine, or spy on him – not because he didn’t know there were risks. 

“Don’t look so suspicious.” 

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Extremely.” Biggs at least knew he had to give him that. “But I’m not going to turn on you right after you got me home safe, okay? Just…trust me, alright?” 

Reeve was curious. Logically there was no way he should follow a member of Avalanche who knew where through the labyrinth of the slums. But he was curious. And he didn’t believe Biggs was someone who’d lash out at a person who’d helped him, even if that person was from Shinra. Still, there was no real reason to take the chance. None except that he found he wanted to. 

“Alright. Lead the way.”

Biggs smiled like he hadn’t really expected Reeve to agree, and even though Reeve still didn’t think this was the logical choice in the moment if felt like the right one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shouldn't have titled this fic 'In The Moment'. Now every time I use or consider using the phrase 'in the moment' it feels so tacky, lol. 
> 
> This chapter was hard to get out for some reason. Next chapter's one I'm looking forward to, though.


	7. Chapter 7

The Sector 5 undercity was alive, bustling, and afraid. Reeve watched the faces of the people they passed on their way to wherever Biggs was taking him and found everything from barely controlled fear, to weariness, to steely resignation and determination. These were normal people who didn’t have the privilege of pausing their lives to mourn. 

Reeve felt exponentially worse about the heaping stack of false hope he’d just delivered with every person they passed. He stood by what he’d told Biggs this morning – that refusing and getting on Rufus’s bad side would only be counterproductive, that he’d never get anything done that way – but it was easier to say than to sit in. 

They got to an area where it seemed like there was a restaurant of some kind and stopped walking for a moment while the owner engaged in some brief small talk with Biggs. He’d waved them over because Wedge had left Biggs a takeout meal – apparently Biggs had had a ‘look’ that said they wouldn’t be meeting up as soon as he’d said, or something. Reeve was trying not to notice the looks on the faces around them so much now that they’d stopped and there was more of a chance of someone trying to talk to him. Instead, he distracted himself by examining the local architecture, particularly a rather large structure built of the kinds of boards and metal sheets that usually only made up one story dwellings in the slums. It was right at the heart of town and didn’t look like it should be able to stay standing…

“No you don’t.” Biggs’s voice came suddenly, sounding cross.

Reeve tried to think of what he could have done to offend the planetologist (in this particular moment, not in life) and came up blank. He turned, frowning, to find Biggs holding the wrist of a young woman. She was wearing trendy clothes, a sour expression, and she had Reeve’s wallet clutched in her hand. 

“Can’t blame me for trying.” She shrugged, but only gave Biggs the wallet after a few seconds of defiant silence. “Seriously, you’re dressed like you could eat the loss easy. Can’t be too surprised if people notice.” 

She walked off at a pace that said she felt no shame while Biggs muttered something about his clothes being borrowed. Reeve briefly noticed her exchange a look with a stout older woman before turning his attention back to Biggs and taking his offered wallet. “Thank you.”

“You should pay more attention.”

“I had been, but…” Reeve didn’t think it would be productive to explain why he’d allowed himself to get distracted so he didn’t. “Anyways, thank you.”

“You could eat the loss. I should have let her take it.” Biggs rolled his eyes and didn’t sound completely serious… although he didn’t sound like he was exactly joking either. 

They carried on, Biggs now with a small takeout bag, and it wasn’t long before they were in an area where there seemed to be actual grass growing. Grass and other plants, growing wild. Reeve wasn’t a planetologist, but he did know that things should have a harder time growing in Midgar. Reeve’s department had been looking into solutions for the lack of growth at one point a couple years ago – with approval of the president, even (a more stable food source inside the city could be needed if war broke out again) – but the project had been sidelined by various other things. 

“The ancient lived in the Sector 5 undercity, didn’t she?” This patch of green must be her doing. 

“Aerith. And yeah, this is her home. I don’t really know her, just her mom. If she’s the reason we can grow food here then I’ve got to thank her for that. It wasn’t like this when I was a kid.” 

They’d slowed down a bit as they approached a building a bit larger and sturdier looking than most of the makeshift structures they’d passed. Reeve was just starting to take in the chalk drawings and roaming children and may have asked if they were visiting a school, but he didn’t get a chance. 

A young boy who’d been watering some plants near the possible-school glanced their way and his eyes lit up with excitement. He dropped the cup he’d been using and ran over.

“Mr. Biggs! You’re back!” 

A girl who’d been standing with the boy noticed them only slightly after him and came dashing over too, her ponytail bouncing as she ran. The boy’s shout also seemed to summon 3 more children from somewhere and in a matter of seconds they were surrounded and bombarded with excited questions.

“Where did you go? Ms. Folia said you were sick and we shouldn’t bother you, but then she said you were gone again!”

“Why’re you dressed so weird?”

“Were you working in Sector 7 when it happened? Was it scary?”

“Are you coming back to the Leaf House now? Are you going to stay?”

“Did you bring us more books?”

“Hey guys, sorry to take off like that. I’ll catch up with you all later, alright?” Biggs wore the weight of what he was involved in on his face – a hardness behind his eyes, a heaviness in his default frown. When Reeve told him his friend was alive the day before that had all evaporated into something hopeful and bright, for a moment. Something similar happened now, although the smile was maybe less bright and more warm. It was an expression that told Reeve he loved these kids as much as they clearly adored him. “I’ve got to show my, uh, friend something right now.”

Five sets of eyes were on Reeve instantly.

“You’re friends with Mr. Biggs?” A note of awe. This was apparently the coolest thing you could be.

“You look like an office man.” A scrunched, skeptical, look. This was apparently the worst thing you could be.

“Are you from the plate? Are you rich?”

“You should donate to the Leaf House, if you’re rich.”

“Do something cool!” The girl who’d been the second to run over demanded, arms crossed. “If you’re really friends with Mr. Biggs’s you should be able to. Do something cool!”

“Yeah! Or at least tell us something cool!”

And then it was quiet and the kids were all staring at him, waiting for him to perform ‘something cool’. Reeve looked to Biggs to find him torn between amusement and embarrassment, likely feeling awkward about the hero-worship. He shrugged apologetically. “Reeve’s got to get going soon. He’s busy, and I’m sure you’ve all got chores or patrols to do. We’ll catch up later.” 

“Did you know there’s a king of cats?” Biggs was giving him an easy out, but Reeve found he didn’t want it. Maybe it was silly, but he felt like he’d done a lot of disappointing lately (mostly to himself, since the rest of the city didn’t know he’d been lying just now) and he didn’t want to add to it. 

Biggs shot him a skeptical look and so then Reeve [i]had[/i] to keep going. 

“Like a monster? Like the toad king?”

“No, not a monster at all. A cat who’s a king.” Reeve turned from Biggs back to the kids, who looked skeptical but interested.

“Like, a leader of the cats in Midgar?”

“No, a king of all the cats in the world.”

“How do you know?”

“When I was your age I met a cat who talked to me.”

“Cat’s can’t talk!” The boy who said that looked particularly skeptical, but his peers were quickly becoming engaged.

Reeve had hoped one of them would say that; a counter-point had come to him when he’d first started the story. “Cat’s [i]don’t[/i] talk, usually, but they can. They just think talking with humans is boring. You know how talking to adults can be. That’s why if a cat is going to talk, it’s going to be to a kid.” 

A couple of the kids nodded like that made perfect sense. They were hooked into the story now.

“So what’d the cat say?”

“He said to tell Meowcifer that Purrdicor was dead.” 

“Who’re they?”

“I didn’t get to ask. I guess I’ve always seemed like an ‘office man’ – the cat got bored and ran off.” 

A couple kids laughed, but one looked disappointed.

“So that’s the whole story?”

“No. I went to my friend’s house to tell him a cat had talked to me. He didn’t believe me, but then his cat talked too!”

“What’d he say?”

“I told my friend what the cat had said to me and his cat just sprang up from his nap and shouted ’Then I’m the king of cats!’. He ran off out the window and my friend never saw him again.” 

Reeve could see clearly on their faces which of the kids were going to re-tell it this story to their other friends and which ones were going to declare it stupid and then try to talk to a cat when nobody was looking. 

“This is silly. Cats [i]can’t[/i] talk.” 

“They just don’t talk to you ‘cause you’re boring!”

“They don’t talk to you either!”

“Do too!”

“I bet if we find the king of cats he’ll grant our wishes!”

“That’s leprechauns. Cats don’t grant wishes!”

Biggs started stepping away from the kids and Reeve followed suit. They seemed completely engrossed in their own conversation now and it was surprising they even noticed the grown ups leaving. The first boy who’d noticed Biggs called out to them before they made it to the door of the building.

“Wait, Mr. Biggs, you [i]are[/i] staying home now, right? For a while at least?”

“For a while.” Biggs confirmed, and to Reeve he seemed a bit guilty although the kids didn’t notice. They just happily returned to discussing feline royalty, secure in the knowledge that their idol was sticking around.

They went inside the building and Reeve saw what appeared to be a classroom, but they kept walking past it through another set of doors. It looked more like a home past there and Reeve realized that given the mount of children in the area this was probably an orphanage. There was a hall and a staircase, and they carried on down the hall to an old fashioned, but clean and orderly, kitchen. Most meals must be taken at the long wooden table outside since this room wasn’t big enough for that. There was a small square table with four seats and Reeve imagined the staff probably ate here before tending to the children. Biggs sat down slightly heavily and Reeve frowned.

“Are you alright? Is your wound still closed?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, I’m fine. Just… I haven’t been around here in a year.”

“You’re a… caretaker here?” It seemed like an odd profession for an extremist.

“A teacher. Or I used to try to be, anyways.” Biggs shook his head and dug into the takeout bag. It was some kind of rice dish with a strong, spicy, smell and Biggs stood briefly to get forks from a drawer, shoving one towards Reeve before sitting again. Reeve took a seat – he didn’t want to repeat Biggs’s hovering act from his office, although he was starting to feel awkward – but didn’t join Biggs in digging into the dish. It was his lunch and Reeve knew food was a precious commodity in the slums, although this part of Sector 5 was clearly more capable of feeding itself than most places. 

Reeve also doubted he’d been brought here to tell stories and share takeout. He didn’t want to get too comfortable and then be blindsided, although it felt less and less likely he was about to be abducted by Avalanche. 

“Thank you, but I can’t –“

“Listen, I don’t expect you to understand this, but I can’t accept shelter from you and then eat in front of you without sharing.” Biggs looked like he was prepared to argue the point, if Reeve made that necessary. Reeve felt the corner of his mouth curl up.

“A matter of pride, hm?”

“Something like that.” 

Reeve relented, reaching to scoop up a bite. It was just far enough to be awkward, but Reeve didn’t want to suggest getting another plate since his plan was to only peck at it a bit and leave Biggs with most of his meal. Biggs solved the issue by sliding both the dish and his own chair closer so they could both reach easily. Their knees bumped under the table the next time he leaned forwards to take a bite, and Reeve considered for a moment whether he should retreat back a bit – again remembering how averse Biggs had initially been to sharing space with him – but Biggs seemed unaffected and Reeve… It had been a long time since he’d been close to someone casually like this. He didn’t want to move away if Biggs didn’t want him to. It wasn’t a good idea to be fraternizing with an extremist, and he couldn’t think of anything else to call this, but what harm could it do to have one meal, one afternoon, away from the company? 

“So, what do you teach?” The food was delicious, but it was also spicier than Reeve normally chose for himself. He flinched slightly and felt his eyes tear up a bit. Biggs let out an amused little snort at that.

“I like teaching History and Literature best, but we try to cover whatever we can. I managed to get some science text books from the plate a couple years ago and they’ve been a big help.” 

“That explains why the kids worship you.”

“What?”

“Teachers who are passionate about history or books are always the most magnetic lecturers.” 

Biggs looked a little flustered at that, which served him right for laughing at Reeve’s reaction to the food. Again, Reeve wanted to tease, but reminded himself that they weren’t really friends. Which was why it was so confusing that Biggs had brought him here, to what seemed to be his home, to meet children he cared for and share food and conversation. The thought that the other shoe had to drop soon lingered in the peripheries of Reeve’s mind, and he thought maybe he should just ask what it was Biggs wanted to show him, but for the moment he found himself more curious about Biggs himself.

“So you’re a teacher here, but you’ve been gone for a year. Because of Avalanche?” Reeve had always thought of extremists as people who maybe didn’t have much else in their lives to focus on. It wasn’t as if he was ignorant to the many legitimate reasons someone living in the slums might hate Shinra, he just thought most people had more immediate concerns like earning a living and feeding a family. Being a teacher – probably one of very few – at an orphanage was the kind of thing that’d keep someone busy, though, and Biggs had still found time for planetology.

Biggs frowned darkly, and Reeve felt considerably less welcome than he had a second earlier. “I’m with Avalanche [i]for[/i] the kids here. So there’ll be a living planet for them when they’re grown.”

“That wasn’t an accusation.” Reeve was obviously against what Avalanche had tried to do to the reactors, even knowing they weren’t to blame for most of the destruction. Whatever you thought about mako, people relied on that energy. Still, he had no intention of lecturing Biggs about that. Biggs was convinced of the righteousness of his cause. Reeve both envied that level of clarity and found it frustrating – there was no point in reasoning with someone like that. “I don’t agree with Avalanche, but if you say you do what you do for these kids then I believe you. It’s clear how important they are to you. I’m sure you wouldn’t leave them if you didn’t feel sure it was the right thing.”

Biggs sighed and shook his head, leaning back in his chair and giving Reeve a look he couldn’t decipher. He looked like he was going to say something, hesitated, and then said something which Reeve was fairly sure was different from what he’d wanted to say. “They don’t even know that, you know? I’ve never told them why I left, just that I’m working somewhere else.”

“I wouldn’t be safe for them to know, never mind the risk to you and your friends.” 

“Right, but since they don’t know why, they should hold it against me.” This was clearly a source of guilt for Biggs. Reeve didn’t quite know how the two of them had gone from strained cooperation to breathing exercises and confessions in less than two days, but the urge to comfort him didn’t feel out of place. Logic told Reeve it was, though, and so he resisted reaching for the other man’s hand. “They’re so happy with whatever attention and care they can get they don’t think for a second that they deserve anything better.”

“I’m sure they have a lot of reasons to look up to you like they do. And they certainly do – they did want me to prove myself worthy of being near you just now, right?”

-

Biggs couldn’t help being amused by that memory. The kids had reacted to Biggs saying Reeve was his friend the way some parents reacted to meeting someone their child was dating – ‘you better prove yourself to me if you want this to go anywhere’. And Reeve had handled it effortlessly, launching into a modified version of The King of Cats which had both distracted the kids and would probably be a source of inspiration for their games for the next week or so. It was a bit strange to think that an engineer/corporate stooge had a go-to fairy tale, but Reeve had been consistently full of surprises. “You handled that better than I would have expected.”

“We’ve already established that I’m not what you expected.” Reeve referenced his comment from the day before, in the library. “Whatever that was.” 

Biggs rolled his eyes. He had no intention of elaborating about that, and Reeve should be able to guess anyways. ‘I thought you were a soulless corporate drone who didn’t care about Shinra’s crimes. Now I think you have a soul and that you’re probably sad and lonely, but still a corporate drone’. “If you want me to launch into my views on Shinra top brass, yourself included, then I can but I think you can imagine.” 

“I mean, if you have any horrible things to say about Heidegger then I wouldn’t mind hearing them.” Reeve joked (although Biggs got the impression he probably would enjoy that) and let the topic go with a shrug. He took another small bite and it was pretty obvious he was only eating enough to look like he was eating. He was trying to be considerate. And to cheer Biggs up, about the kids. The main thing that Reeve seemed to be, which Biggs would never have believed before meeting him, was kind. 

“So, how did you become a teacher?” Reeve sounded genuinely curious about Biggs’s life, his dark eyes fixed mainly on him rather than the food he was pretending to eat. Biggs realized then that they were sitting awfully close. It was a distance he was comfortable with when it was Jessie, Wedge, or one of the others he was sharing with or looking over a plan with so he hadn’t thought much of it when he’d pulled his chair over. Now that he’d looked over and made eye contact he was extremely aware of how close they were.

“When I was growing up in the Leaf House you didn’t really learn anything that came from a book.” Maybe Biggs should have put some distance between them, or at least given the short answer – that he grew up here and then started teaching here – and then moved on to the actual reason he’d brought Reeve to the house, but he didn’t. Biggs had decided when he’d decided to let the executive see the Leaf House that he was alright with being known by him. Beyond that, Reeve seemed intelligent, thoughtful, and empathetic – someone Biggs might want to know better if it weren’t for the ‘corporate drone’ thing. So, the idea that Reeve maybe wanted to know him felt nice, in a way. “The housemothers at the time tried their best, of course, but they only had so much time and so much money and education wasn’t really seen as important. We were all going to get service or labour jobs – if we were lucky enough to get jobs - so we wouldn’t need it anyways, right?” 

Biggs hated that – how people seemed to think they already knew exactly how the life of a slum orphan would go. “There’s nothing wrong with those jobs, but I wanted the kids coming up after me to feel like they could have other dreams or at least to never think they weren’t as smart or as worthy as anyone who came up on the plate.” 

“You threw yourself into education so you could share it with kids like you.” Reeve looked impressed – reverent, even – and that did make Biggs feel like he needed to scoot his chair back a bit and look away. He heard Reeve chuckle softly and knew he probably seemed flustered. That was embarrassing, but he pushed onwards.

“No, it wasn’t all that selfless. We all started looking for work pretty young, and I was just lucky that I found it with a bookseller that travelled between sectors. I got the chance to get better at reading than most of the kids my age, and then when I was a teenager I spun the experience into a job re-shelfing books in a library up on the Sector 8 plate. I ‘threw myself into education’ there because I wanted to, because I enjoyed learning new things. And I saw kids my age who grew up on the plate when they’d come in to do homework, and listen to them complain about it like it was a hardship instead of a privilege. It pissed me off.” Biggs smiled with a bit of irony, looking forward to seeing how Reeve reacted to the next part. “And that’s when I started stealing books for the Leaf House.”

Reeve blinked. “Stealing?”

“Yeah. Just in case the teacher thing was making you think I was less of a criminal, or something.” The revelation actually didn’t seem to deter Reeve from looking at him like he was…special, or something. And Biggs didn’t know what to do to with that, or the strange twist in his own stomach, at all so he just kept talking. “About half the books we teach from here, or that are available for the kids to read for fun, were stolen. The plate kids seemed to prefer computer research anyways, I figured. It took about a year for anyone to notice what I was doing, and then I was fired. I knew it was coming and had already started consuming whatever resources I could about teaching. I became the teacher here when I was 18, and after a few years class time was an established part of life at the Leaf House. We even added a couple more volunteer teachers over the years, and since food’s been easier to come by we can spend some donation money on books and supplies.” 

“…So I guess I’m not what a lot of people would consider a ‘real’ teacher. Self-taught, no real training –“

“No, you’re amazing.”

And now Biggs was actually blushing. He stood up hastily and busied himself with putting the remains of his meal in the fridge, because that was all kinds of embarrassing. Reeve hadn’t even seemed to be flattering him or trying to complement him, just making a sincere observation. Biggs reminded himself that this was a Shinra director he was over-sharing with and getting all flustered over, and that was enough to get himself back under control. It was time he got to the point of this whole visit.

“Anyways, I do want to show you something.”

“I was wondering when we’d get to that.” The awed quality had left Reeve’s voice. They were back to business.

Biggs opened the cupboard under the sink and crouched to dig behind the garbage can. The nearby river was cleaner than most water sources in the slums – certainly smelled better – but the water that came through the plumbing was the same as everywhere else. Biggs dug out the filter and brought it over to plop on the table in front of Reeve. Being used, it was damp and dirty.

“Well.” Reeve blinked at the slightly disgusting object in front of him. “Seems it’s your turn to defy my expectations.” 

“It’s a water filter. It helps with the smell and makes the tap water a lot safer to drink. My friend Jessie designed them. This is one of her older models, her new ones work even better. She’s brilliant with gadgets and inventions like this, and she manages to find ways of making things so we can afford to make them.”

“She sounds impressive?” Reeve was still clearly confused about why he was looking at a used water filter.

“She is. She saw a need people in the community had and she found a way to help. Full disclosure – it also helps Avalanche.” Biggs leaned back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, and watched as realization dawned on Reeve’s face as he kept talking. “But that’s besides the point. Jessie’s an actress. She has no formal training in making things like this and almost no resources, but she still found a way to make a huge impact on people’s quality of life. And she didn’t need anyone’s permission.”

“Oh.” 

“So imagine what an engineer with all the resources in Midgar could do if he stopped waiting around for permission.” 

“It’s not that simple, I can’t move forward on a big project without –

“I’m not talking about a big project. Rebuilding Sector 7 isn’t the only way to make people’s lives better. I still think the best thing you could do is quit, but if you’re not ready to do that then do something else. These filters are cheap to make, I’m sure you could find a way without Rufus noticing. Or you could think of something completely different. Just do something. Use your position, if you’re not ready to give it up.” 

“You say ‘not ready’ like you think I’m going to leave Shinra later.” Reeve was frowning, and there was an apologetic quality to it. “I’m not going to work against the company. I believe in the ord-“

“I’m not asking you to work against Shinra, or help Avalanche, or anything like that.” Biggs cut Reeve off before he could start in on his support for the system Shinra had created. “I’m just saying that if you care as much as you seem to care, and that if you’re as clever as you seem to be, you’ll find ways to help the people of this city that don’t require a sociopath signing off. People have done more with less.”

“You certainly did.” A slight note of that awed quality was back.

“No, I didn’t mean – Jessie’s the one who –“

“I can’t imagine having a real school here hasn’t helped this community, and all the communities your students end up in.” Reeve smiled and stood. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“You’re not helpless!” Biggs realized that probably seemed like an odd outburst, but it was obvious their time together was ending and it was something he needed Reeve to know. “Earlier, you looked like you felt helpless. But you’re not.” 

“…Thank you, Biggs. For this whole afternoon. Can I take this filter with me?”

“Yeah, Leaf House has a couple spares.” Reeve seemed to actually understand what Biggs was trying to tell him, and it seemed like it was even something it helped him to hear. It was a huge relief. Biggs did still feel like the best thing Reeve could do, for everyone including himself, would be to leave Shinra behind. He hoped he might get there sooner than later, but for now this was progress. 

“I suppose this is goodbye then. It’s been… I will follow your advice.” Reeve hesitated awkwardly for a moment as if he had more to say, then picked up the filter and lingered for a moment.

“Good. That’s good.” Biggs felt plenty awkward himself. He wasn’t sure why – he’d gotten Reeve to agree to look into making filters, and hopefully find other ways to help Midgar heal. That was what he’d wanted. And now it was time for Reeve to go. “See you later.”

“You probably won’t.” Reeve was smiling, but he sounded sad. 

“I guess not.” 

Reeve finally turned to leave, and it was the sight of him stepping out the door that prompted Biggs’s next words, which had definitely not been part of the plan. “Wait. Your number.”

“I’m… not sure I follow.”

“Domino gave me a communicator. So we could keep talking, if you wanted.” Biggs’s heart was hammering away at his chest much harder than he could explain. 

“You want to check to make sure I follow through?” When Reeve looked back he was still smiling and sounding sad, like he thought Biggs was making the suggestion because he didn’t believe him.

“I’d like to know what you come up with. And hey, if you ever want someone to trash the other Shinra execs to – I’m here for you. I do have some pretty horrible things to say about Heidegger.” Biggs tried to grin. He must have pulled it off because Reeve’s smile stopped looking sad and he pulled out his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reeve obviously took some liberties with The King of Cats, but it's an actual fairy tale if you want to google it. 
> 
> I was looking forward to this chapter because it's the one where they start associating by choice, not just by circumstance. Also, in terms of a 3 act structure, we're at the end of Act 1 =)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

It was another day at the office. Reeve had eaten breakfast – coffee and a blueberry muffin – in the cafeteria and dodged conversation attempts from both Palmer (in the halls – he would never eat in the cafeteria) and Domino’s assistant Hart and absorbed the onslaught of information his assistant started rattling off the second he was back on his department’s main floor and walking to his office. Leah had been waiting for him near the elevators and fell easily into step with him as he walked, handing him a stack of three manilla envelopes and his second coffee of the day. 

The workspace surrounding his office was bustling, as the cafeteria had been. Reeve could almost pretend everything had gone back to normal, but when arrived in his office and looked out the window there was still a gaping hole in the city.

It had been three weeks since the collapse of the Sector 7 plate… That was maybe too passive a way to say it. It had been three weeks since the corporation Reeve was an executive at had collapsed the Sector 7 plate, murdering thousands of people. 

During the time since the tragedy Reeve had put a lot of hours in at the office. He had always worked a lot. Sleeping – or not sleeping – at the office wasn’t unusual for him, but it used to be a few times a month (more if they were near the end of a fiscal quarter). Now it was every night. He hadn’t seen his apartment in over a week, when he’d stopped in to grab some additional changes of clothes. 

What he was doing with his time at the office was different as well. He was doing the usual work of running his department, in addition to the remote espionage work he had agreed to do back when he’d thought it’d get him on Rufus’s good side (he still hoped it was making some impact, but it was impossible to tell with that man). He was also trying to make good on what he’d discussed with Biggs. 

Reeve was in a position of some power and there were ways he could use that to get at least some things done, if he was just a bit sneaky. It wasn’t like he could build a big shelter behind Rufus’s back with company funds, but he was finding ways to make some progress. Mostly, he was hiding costs in the memorial project and inter-plate highway budgets. There were a lot of inexpensive medical supplies that were impossible to get in the slums right now. He was even working on setting up an unofficial program where undercity residents in Sector 5 could earn some gil assembling filters. Reeve was putting his own money into it as well, not just the company’s, but even then he was using company holdings to cover his tracks and stay anonymous so as not to attract unwanted attention to his activities. 

He wasn’t half bad at subterfuge, between this and his role with Cait Sith. 

Biggs was also a new addition to Reeve’s life post-collapse. Not that he’d actually seen him again since they’d parted ways, but they’d been talking quite a lot. Biggs was helping him figure out what to buy and coordinating how to receive and distribute it, but it wasn’t just that they were working together. They’d talk for as long they could both spare most nights – and it was always at night. Reeve always worked late and he’d learned that Biggs was the type to be kept awake by his thoughts. 

At first it had seemed awkward. When Biggs had expressed that he wanted a way to stay in touch it had felt good, but he’d managed to talk himself out of the idea by the time his helicopter arrived back on the plate.

He liked Biggs, of course. If he hadn’t already been impressed by how far he’d gone to rescue his friend, hearing the story of how he’d become a teacher and knowing he was probably responsible for a lot of kids dreaming up brighter futures for themselves would have sealed it. Biggs was an amazing person…

Aside from trying to knock out the power grid. 

Reeve wasn’t blind to Shinra’s guilt, but that didn’t mean he could support a group like Avalanche and it didn’t mean he should be trying to befriend someone from it. 

He’d also thought about how Biggs probably felt about the same, except worse. He’d probably asked to keep in touch in the moment, because they’d been getting along, and regretted it later. However badly Reeve still thought of Avalanche, he could imagine how much more heinous a Shinra director like him must look to Biggs. He’d decided not to call him.

Despite that decision, or perhaps because of it, he found himself grinning when a few nights after they’d parted he’d checked his buzzing phone and seen the name he’d saved Biggs’s contact under (Mr. B. Iggums, in case of snooping) displayed on the screen. It wasn’t breaking his rule if Biggs was the one to call him first. 

His grin faded into something confused as soon as he picked up, though. 

“You have a tree.” There was a note of accusation in Biggs’s voice, which was pitched deliberately low. Reeve had glanced at the clock in the bottom-right corner of the monitor his eyes had been blued to for the past 4 hours and understood why – it was 3 am. The children and other employees of the Leaf House must be asleep. Why wasn’t Biggs?

“I’m sorry, I have a tree?”

“At Shinra HQ. I saw it on a flyer. It’s real? And the plants in the halls?”

“Oh, in the cafeteria you mean? Yes, all the plants are real. Why do you ask?” Biggs wasn’t quite making sense yet, but Reeve was nothing if not patient. He didn’t mind waiting for Biggs to get where he needed to get in the conversation, but as Biggs continued to mutter mostly to himself Reeve realized he’d need to be assertive if he wanted this to actually be a conversation. Especially since Biggs seemed to be talking himself into the inevitability of some kind of famine. 

“…Shinra’s probably got some kind of designer dirt and robotic irrigation system keeping it alive –“

“Biggs?”

“Soil loses nutrients naturally over time if you farm it, and that’s not factoring in how the land around here’s cut off from the lifestream.“

“Biggs!” Reeve spoke slightly more sharply, though not harshly, in order to cut in. He’d heard enough to grasp the topic. When Biggs didn’t continue muttering to himself, Reeve continued in a level voice. “You’re worrying over the Leaf House’s vegetables? Now that the ancient isn’t living in Sector 5.”

Biggs hesitated before answering. 

“It’s late isn’t it? I was just awake thinking, and I remembered the plants at Shinra… I’ve never had one of these phones before. They’re dangerous. I remembered I could call you and ask so I just did, didn’t even think of the time. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I’m glad you called.” Reeve was quick to assure him, all thoughts of how keeping contact was probably a bad idea lost for the moment. “But you really should try to sleep. Everything looks worse at 3 am.” 

“Then why are you still up and answering my call?”

Because he had at least as much of his normal work to do as before the collapse, and a few days ago he’d had to start carving out daylight hours to pilot Cait Sith. The onboard A.I could handle a lot, but Reeve was expected to pop in daily in addition to downloading and reviewing the logs and he tried to make sure he synced with Cait during hours where it was more likely something important might happen – i.e. not at night. That meant bumping other work later. 

“No rest for the wicked, right?” Reeve joked wryly, earning an amused scoff from the dissident on the other end of the line. 

“I was only there briefly, but it looked like you had quite the harvest coming soon. It won’t wither overnight.”

“I guess not.”

“I’ll send what I can find on the plants here to your phone,” Reeve was already typing awkwardly with one hand. “I can probably request any research R&D has done on the topic too – I’m supposed to be building a park, you know?”

They’d talked for about an hour after that – about the memorial project and how Reeve was already thinking of how to use it to hide other expenses and about Biggs’ ideas for those expenses. Staying engaged with the conversation seemed to help Biggs anchor his mind in the moment and he became more present as they talked, and less obviously consumed with worry. It made Reeve feel a bit less embarrassed about having needed Biggs’s help to calm himself before, and he realised the breathing exercise he’d been talked through was probably something Biggs had needed himself before. 

“Alright, R&D probably won’t get back to me for a few days but I’ll send you what I could find.”

“You’ve already got something?”

“I’m a multitasker. But unless you can read and sleep at the same time, I think it’s best you save it for tomorrow. Or this afternoon, I suppose, the sun will rise soon.” 

“Right.” The word was distorted by a yawn. Biggs was sounding a lot less worried than when he’d first called, but he was definitely too tired to keep talking. “Sorry.”

“I already said it’s fine. I was up anyways, and honestly I think talking to you was more productive than trying to win a staring contest with my paperwork.”

“No, not that. If I can distract you from Shinra business I actually consider that a win.” 

Reeve let out a small laugh and rubbed his eye with the palm of his free hand. He could stand to nap for a few hours himself. “Mission accomplished, then. Goodn-“

“I bet Heidegger, uh, smells?”

“What?”

“He seems like someone who wears some overly musky man’s man cologne, and too much of it.” He could hear the grin in Bigg’s voice. “We traded numbers because you wanted to hear bad things about your coworkers and here I am calling you about plants.” 

Reeve covered his mouth to muffle a laugh. That’s what Biggs had been apologizing for? It seemed like someone devoted to taking down Shinra should be able to come up with worse to say about Heidegger than a comment about his cologne, but Reeve realized that this wasn't really about trashing Heidegger. “Nearly passing up an opportunity to badmouth Shinra’s top brass, even though you were specifically asked? Some rebel you are.” 

“Well, if I did forget I’d just be ignoring a request from a different Shinra exec, so I figure I’m good either way. This way’s more fun though.” 

“I’m really glad you called.” Reeve said with too much feeling to pass it off as a reiteration of the polite ‘glad you called’ he’d uttered earlier. It came tumbling out without thought, his guard too low to be too cautious about the conversation. He didn’t have time to be embarrassed before Biggs replied.

“Me too.”

They’d talked for another half hour or so about much lighter topics before hanging up. Part of Reeve still told him he couldn’t really do this – actually be a friend to Biggs while working for Shinra. One of the worries that kept Biggs up at night was for his friends who had fled the city, after all, and Reeve wasn’t able to tell him that he knew they were alright, or how he knew they were alright. There was a voice in the back of his mind that said this would end badly, but that part of him shut up whenever they were actually talking. Which was at least every second night. 

Reeve had a new routine by now and even though the world had gotten darker, talking to Biggs was a bright spot. If he wanted to have time to spend talking with him tonight he knew he needed to get to work. 

Still overlooking the city, he tapped the chip embedded in the back of his neck and waited for the view out the window to become obscured by the transparent overlay of Cait Sith’s vision. Currently, the cat was looking at a lush green forest and a doused campfire. The party was still bustling around getting ready to set out for the day. 

This was Mode 2 – he could see and hear with both Cait’s eyes and ears as well as his own, and he could speak to the AI. Mode 1 was a simple 2-way audio link. Mode 3 was complete immersion where he would prioritize Cait’s sensory input over his own and could actually replace Cait Sith’s AI as the pilot of the robotic body. It was Mode 3 which Reeve tried to devote at least an hour a day to, in addition to reviewing data logs and doing check-ins like this throughout the day.

“Good morning Cait Sith.” The scenery shifted as the robotic cat registered the link was active and found a place they could talk in private. There was no danger of anyone overhearing Reeve since there was no audio of him being projected, but Cait still had to be alone to talk back. 

“Good morning Reeve!” A cheerful voice with the same accent as Reeve’s parents whisper-exclaimed as Cait managed to scramble up a tree somewhere outside of the campsite. There was a plump squirrel on a branch nearby that looked torn as to whether or not to run away, and although Cait didn’t have the hunting instincts of a real cat he did seem to be trying to inch closer to it for some reason. 

“Anything interesting?”

”Not yet! Just cleaning up camp. Barret and Yuffie are fighting because she climbed him to try to get a better view of the valley. I don’t think they’re really mad though. I think they’re friends.” 

Reeve was interested in the interpersonal dynamics of the traveling party only in the sense that he had to know them when he was fully immersed in piloting Cait Sith. It honestly made him feel a little creepy memorizing things like who was getting along and personal details like where everyone had grown up. He didn’t like knowing what had happened between Barret and his old friend, or what had happened to his town, at all. It felt too personal, and Reeve was aware that he wasn’t really their friend. Reporting on their locations and goals was one thing, but Reeve was dreading the day he was asked to give reports on Cait’s traveling companions as people. 

Cait was oblivious to this, though, and was tending more and more to start his reports with anecdotes about amusing things that had happened or conversations he’d been part of that weren’t really related to their mission. It wasn’t ideal, but Reeve supposed it was those inefficiencies in his programming that gave him personality. He wouldn’t be nearly as fond of him if he simply ran an algorithm to determine what was important enough to relay.

“Big plans for the day?”

“We’re going to keep driving through the day and maybe spend the night in a town called Gongaga.” Cait was still scooching closer to the squirrel – if Reeve had to guess, he’d say sitting so he was straddling the branch and drag-hopping himself forwards bit by bit. Not remotely like a cat stalking prey. 

A gloved hand appeared in the overlay as Cait reached for the furry creature and it finally decided to jump up to a higher branch and run away. “Aw, I wanted to pet –“

The feed became a greenish blur for a moment as Cait overbalanced in his reaching attempt and fell gracelessly to the ground. 

“Are you alright?” Reeve knew logically that a fall from that height couldn’t damage his creation, but he still found himself reflexively worried. 

“Might I ask who you are talking to?” 

Reeve cut the link with Cait immediately when he heard the voice and noticed the reflections of Hart and a frustrated-looking Leah in the window as soon as the video overlay was gone from his awareness.

“I’m sorry sir, I asked if I could take a message but Mr. Hart was rather insistent.” 

Meaning he’d just pushed right on by Leah when she’d tried to stop his entering the office. Reeve nodded his understanding. “It’s alright.”

Leah took that as her cue to leave and shot a dirty look at the back of Hart’s head as she went. 

“And what can I do for the mayor?” Reeve took a seat behind his desk a bit more heavily than he’d meant to and gestured for Hart to sit in one of the chairs. He opted to keep standing. Reeve supposed the mayor and his assistant must both be fairly annoyed with him by this point – Domino had been trying to talk to him since the day Reeve had learned he was an Avalanche collaborator, and Reeve had dodged him at every turn. Messages requesting a meeting had gone ignored, calls went unanswered, and Reeve thought he was developing a sixth sense for when Hart was about to round a corner and needed to be avoided. Domino clearly hadn’t wanted to draw attention to them meeting, however, which is why he’d always sent his proxy and all those messages had been encrypted. 

Reeve had no intention of discussing Avalanche or anything to do with it with the mayor. He wouldn’t report him – he couldn’t, without revealing what he’d done himself – but the less involved they were with each other the better. Sending Hart into Reeve’s office was a bit more blatant than he’d risked before, so either he was truly desperate to speak with Reeve (Reeve had been assuming he just wanted to gloat about his operation, but maybe it was more than that?) or circumstances no longer required so much subtlety. 

“In short: help him plan a party.”

“…Sorry, what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think =)


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